


Should I Stay Or Should I Gitmo?

by RueRambunctious



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: False Identity, Interrogation, M/M, Manipulation, Post-Reichenbach, Starvation, Swearing, Threats, Trauma, Twins, Unimpressed Sebastian, Urination, not dead, spitting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-01-21 09:52:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 27,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12454911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RueRambunctious/pseuds/RueRambunctious
Summary: After Jim's supposed death our favourite criminal consultant is picked up by the government for interrogation. He doesn't expect Irene and Sebastian to be in on it.





	1. 22nd November

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gitmo interrogation seemed a bit more up Sebastian's street than the PEACE technique. Loosely based around a terrorist interrogation log that was published in a British newspaper.

The hood is fairly generic. Visibility through it is almost nil, but there are enough little chinks of light, smaller than pinpricks, that Jim knows he has been led into a lit room. The buzzing of the flourescent lighting gives that away regardless, so that tell isn’t worth much. 

The fabric is not particularly uncomfortable against Jim’s skin and smells familiar. It could be that he’s been here before, or it could simply be similar stock.

Jim’s hood gets pulled off and he has moments to adjust to the room’s lighting and assess his position before he is bolted to the floor. There is no exit other than the doorway he has been brought in through and there are strong guards blocking the way.

Jim is bolted down. He will keep his wits about himself. He has been in situations like this before. He-

A woman’s high heels sound on the corridor floor approaching the interrogation room. The bruised line down Jim’s throat ticks a little faster. He thinks he recognises that pronounced step.

Jim settles his features into careful nonchalance.

Irene is impeccably dressed as always in expensive businesswear, but Jim focuses on the ID badge she has clipped to her clothing and the mildly cruel smirk playing around her painted lips.

She tuts. “Been caught being a naughty boy, have you?”

Jim keeps his expression mostly neutral, allowing just a little bit of threat to leak out in warning. She would not normally be so brave. What makes Irene think his current captivity gives her the upper hand?

The guards leave the room. Jim watches intently and keeps his expression impassive.  
A broad-shouldered man wearing a flash patch that Jim knows damned well isn’t his own strides in with some other officer and gives the bound Irishman an ugly smile.

“Morning, detainee,” Sebastian says coldly. He takes a seat and glances at the unknown element in the room. “Session begins, 02:35am 22nd November 2017,” Sebastian mutters towards the equipment his peer is setting up.

If this is supposed to be a rapport building session someone has failed to inform Sebastian. The blond is evidently pissed off and Jim is uncertain whether the former colonel is here to help or harm.It's been so long since they've been so close together.

“Where are our manners?” Irene exclaims softly, suddenly, her eyes sharp and sparkling like glass under frost. “Would you like some refreshments, M?”

Jim curls his lip. “I’m on hunger strike.”

The unknown quality has a flash badge just like Sebastian’s, at least in colour. Whether it’s falsely attained Jim does not yet know. Green, red and grey, a road trimmed in red cutting through greenery, and if the officer’s really part of the intelligence corps surely she can see that Jim’s in no mood to be told the consequences of a hunger strike on his body.

“Will you even take a water?” she asks politely, leaning forwards towards him.

She’s close enough that Jim can finally read her name tag through his swollen eye. _C. Moran_. Jim goes quite silent.

Sebastian is not understanding. He berates the ‘detainee’ for disrespect and refusal to answer the other Moran’s question.

Jim gives the blond a look. “No, I don’t want _water_. And I’m on hunger strike.”

“Suit yourself,” Sebastian says frostily.

Ten minutes later and the officers permit Jim a break. Either the criminal trusts Sebastian and Irene more than he should, or his body’s ready to shut down by now, because Jim promptly falls asleep.

Sebastian wakes him up unsympathetically. 

Ten minutes later Sebastian wakes Jim again.

It’s almost properly morning by the time they take another break. Jim can feel the effects of the last few difficult days (and indeed the last few months, years) and he wonders if that’s what’s making it so difficult to read his interrogators’ motives.

One of the guards comes back and takes Jim to the toilet.

Interrogation resumes at 05:20am. Jim refuses food and water. Irene seems amused. He doesn’t like it.

Other Moran begins to question Jim on various crimes he knows fine well they already know his involvement in. Jim is soon restless and it makes him cheeky.

Sebastian gives him a stern look and a firm warning, but his eyes barely show any recognition at all.

Irene gives Jim a bottle of water. Jim allows himself to drink it because he can feel his head thumping, his thoughts growing sluggish, and Irene has given him an unconscious look that suggests he can trust the drink. He has almost killed her in the past, but they worked well together before that.

“After this I’m on strike,” Jim says. His tone sounds brittle to his ears and he knows Sebastian knows that means he is tired. Jim refuses food.

Both Morans step outside to discuss something. Jim watches Irene watch him but she doesn’t say anything.

The supposed intelligence officers return. Female Moran continues her line of questioning and Jim attempts to control the converation by complaining about various topics. Sebastian emphasises some frustration over Jim’s refusal to cooperate but doesn’t give Jim any fresh bruises.

“Can I go yet?” Jim asks in a deliberately infuriating voice.

Sebastian gives him a fierce look.

“What about to the bathroom? I’d like to visit the bathroom,” Jim announces.

C. Moran gives S. Moran a look and nods at Jim. “That can be arranged,” she agrees, pushing back her chair and calling back a guard. Jim gets the feeling she is sending him out of the room purely for Sebastian’s benefit.

Jim doesn’t push his luck with the guard in the toilet. He’s too fucking tired for this.

There is food waiting for him upon his return.

“I’m on hunger strike,” Jim reminds them.

“Just eat, M,” Irene says. There’s usually a tone of authority to her voice but it’s a little softened right now. Jim wonders whether she’s pitying him. Perhaps it’s manipulation.

His stomach makes itself known loudly.

Irene stares him down pointedly.

Jim sighs. “Fine. One meal, and then I’m on hunger strike.”

One of his hands is uncuffed and Jim is allowed to eat. Sebastian does not stare at the marks left on Jim’s wrists at at. It is perplexing.

Jim accepts the cereal bar Irene gives him on top of his ration.

C. Moran continues her questioning. It’s boring. Somehow it’s both cyclic and erratic, and Jim wants to go to sleep. His head keeps jerking of its on volition: he needs rest.

It’s granted at half eight. Two whole hours of rest.

C. Moran is already writing up her observations as Jim is collected and removed. She doesn’t look at him. Jim searches for real recognition in Sebastian’s eyes but the blond is unreadable, oddly so.

Someone gives Jim an extra five minutes on top of those promised two hours, or at least, C. Moran tells the recording device it is 10:35am when Jim is secured in his chair. The interrogators are still both Morans and Irene still wears a tag with an acronym Jim remembers marks her as some sort of behavioural consultant.

Jim is soon offered another bathroom break even though they’ve barely spoken. He agrees anyway and one of the guards queries Jim staring at the flooring underfoot for several minutes.  
Jim rubs his face on the shoulder of his rumbled clothing tiredly. “Nothing.”

“What’s on your mind?” C. Moran asks, smoothing a stray tuft of blond hair back behind her ear. She looks a tad sleepy herself.

Jim looks hard at her and begins a tirade about how unfair his situation is. They all let him talk for thirty five minutes and he hates them a little for it.

“Is it time for a break yet?” Jim asks tetchily.

“Not yet,” C. Moran denies smoothly.

Jim is quiet. “What month is it?” he asks at last.

They stare at him. They know he’s heard them record the date earlier.

Not given an answer, Jim persists in repeating the question. He then turns silent for ten minutes or so, brooding.

He straightens his shoulders and engages in perky conversation for almost half an hour. Not a bit of it seems relevant.

Jim begins to droop and stops answering the blonde woman at all, even with cheek. When prompted he slumps on the desk and refuses to speak at all.

His interrogators get up and leave, but Irene and a guard stay. Jim rests.

Sebastian returns and brushes calloused fingers briefly over Jim’s arm. “Twenty minutes and you can have some water.”

“Don’t want any,” Jim mumbles. His tone is less petulent. He misses Sebastian’s attention.

“You’ll do as you’re told,” the blond retorts shortly. His colleague takes out some photographs and Sebastian leans back in his chair, giving Jim a look that clearly says ‘pay attention.’

True to his word, in what feels like twenty minutes Sebastian stops the interrogation and fetches Jim water.

Jim drinks it listlessly. Lunch comes and goes. At first he agrees to eat, but then claims this was merely because he is mentally unwell. Jim insists sluggishly that he is not thinking clearly. He refuses to eat.

Irene looks more worried for his welfare than Sebastian does. If the blonde woman is suspicious her neutral face does not show it.

Sebastian calls up video evidence and shows it to Jim. The brunet watches without exhibiting any clear emotion, but adverts his eyes when a darkhaired woman comes onscreen.

C. Moran reads off names of criminals captured and killed in relation to Jim’s crimes. The brunet stares off into space but it is clear he is listening when he closes his eyes against the names of some of the dead. Irene looks momentarily surprised by two of the names, but Sebastian does not seem fussed.

C. Moran tries to engage Jim in conversation about family and dreams, horrible little leading comments which sound so falsely innocent. Jim gives Sebastian a very cold look.

“May I visit the bathroom?” Jim asks in a clipped voice. It’s late now, early evening is his estimation. If he is still able to judge.

Sebastian spreads his arms and leans back in his chair. He nods after a beat and calls through a guard to escort Jim.

The brunet returns with a hardened gaze. He refused to speak further or eat. Food and water are brought anyway and placed beside him where they remain untouched.

C. Moran presents a document. Jim barely reacts when she starts to describe things he shouldn’t have expected them to know.

“I think it’s clear that you failed,” C. Moran says without inflection after showing evidence which _should_ disturb Jim. The Irishman’s features do not register failure or anything else.

Irene eyes him carefully. “Do you want food and a nap, M?” she asks.

Jim lifts his head to look at her but does not speak. He gives an eldritch stare until Sebastian jerks his shorn head at a guard and has Jim marched to the toilet again. It’s after seven.

Jim starts talking again upon his return, but it’s all megamanical gibberish and riddles. Normally Sebastian’s eyes would sparkle in the slightest amusement. They don’t this evening.

C. Moran tries to twist some of Jim’s works. He fake cries in response, but gets bored far too soon and plays noisily with his chains instead. Irene gives Jim a look like he knows exactly what she does to brats in chains. Jim’s tempted to tease, but something in Sebastian’s posture keeps him quiet.

“I’m trying to help,” C. Moran says abruptly. “I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.”

She looks like Sebastian around the mouth but Jim stares right through her.

Irene sends Jim to bed around half eight. The Moran siblings bring Jim back in about nine forty five, after a rude awakening and a brief trip to the bathroom.

Jim doesn’t talk.

Sebastian lets him sleep at midnight.


	2. 23 November

At four in the morning Jim is woken and taken to the bathroom. He’s still pretty much asleep and his guards can tell: they walk him around for five minutes or so before they take him back to the interrogation room.

The female Moran greets him blandly and offers water. Jim refuses, staring instead at Sebastian. Sebastian looks right through him. Jim didn’t think the blond was such a good actor.

“When’s the Ice Man joining us?” the tired criminal asks.

Irene shifts her limbs in elegant unease. Sebastian gives Jim an unsympathetic look. “Why would that matter? It’s not like you have any control over the situation, detainee.”

Jim stares at him. “I don’t know how to answer that,” he says flatly.

“We can talk about him later,” C. Moran says.

Jim doesn’t respond.

C. Moran pushes photographs over the cold desk towards him. She makes remarks about what she supposes each of the criminals may have been like and does not notice the regret which flashes across Irene’s pretty eyes. C. Moran’s attention lingers over the pictures of the youngest ones.

Jim does not drop his eyes to the photographs.

“Why won’t you look, detainee?” Sebastian sneers.

Jim raises his eyes to the blond’s unreadable blue ones with dangerous slowness. Sebastian does not respond to the threat, not even the usual telltale twitch of the vein on his forehead.

C. Moran tries to soften the tension in the air. She babbles something about circumstantial evidence.

Jim stares at her blankly for long enough that he falls asleep. S. Moran wakes him harshly.

Jim gives the big man a frosty look. “I’m not looking at the pictures because they don’t pertain to my case, Colonel. And whilst we’re at it, I’d like to put on record that I’m striking from interrogations.” He licks his lips. “They bore me.”

Sebastian squares his shoulders threateningly and the legs of his chair screech against the floor.

“Please,” Irene says.

Sebastian looks tempted to turn the recording device off and hurt Jim some more, but his sister pushes the evidence towards Jim again.

“Nothing to concern me,” Jim insists.

“You’re tied to the evidence,” C. Moran insists.

Irene’s lips twitch like she’s quite happy to see Jim tied down. She’s been rather gentle with the cuts around his wrists over the past few days. Jim’s uncertain what she wants, and that surprises him. He supposes the difficulty is due to his tiredness.

Jim leans back in his chair and raises an eyebrow at the yellow-haired siblings. “Do you want me to say something?”

“We don’t need an answer from you,” Sebastian retorts. Jim’s shoulders drop a little.

C. Moran keeps talking. She’s trying to manipulate him by guilting him over the photographs. Jim says nothing but she can tell from how he holds himself that she has his ear.

C. Moran points out the odd mistakes which tie Jim to the evidence. Sebastian surely understands the puzzle but he does not give Jim any indication of it. It’s... disheartening.

Jim does not respond.

“Stay awake,” Sebastian warns him.

About ten minutes later he makes the same warning.

“Get up,” Sebastian snarls.

Jim blinks at him.

The blond prick makes him stand up and sit down three times, the insubordinate sadist.

“Sleeping or otherwise failing to pay attention will not be tolerated,” Sebastian scolds.

“Your continued silence hurts no one but yourself,” his sister adds mildly.  
Jim merely sulks quietly. Irene watches him with a modicum of sympathy, unnoticed by the others. God, but he’s getting tired. Exhausted.

The Morans keep droning on at him. Sebastian makes Jim stand then sit a few more times.

“Pay attention,” the traitor warns.

C. Moran pretends to diffuse the atmosphere with some false rapport-building story. Irene looks bored.

Jim interrupts. “I’m falling asleep here. Give me some water and I’ll try to wake myself up.”

Sebastian crosses his thick arms and jerks his head toward his sister. “She decides when you get to drink.” He glowers. “And interrupting is rude.”

Jim disregards him. “Water.”

“No,” Sebastian says fiercely.

“I want water,” Jim insists.

Sebastian looks tempted to waterboard him but despite his flaring nostrils merely growls, “You will ask with respect.”

“May I have water please?” Jim sneers.

Irene hands him water.

C. Moran moves on with the investigation without acknowledging her irritated brother. Jim drinks and says nothing.

The chill of the water helps, but just barely. Before long Jim feels his head slumping forwards. Sebastian makes him stand again and Jim is almost glad of it. There’s no softness in the blond’s voice when he orders Jim to, “Pay attention.” The prick spends at least five minutes instructing Jim on the ‘proper way to show respect’ to C. Moran.

She resumes talking. Jim does not respond.

“Are you hungry?” she asks at last.

Jim refuses the meal and Sebastian scolds him: the refusal to eat is ‘unproductive’.  
C. Moran offers Jim a respite of thirty minutes in his cell. His bones scream out but he refuses.

Irene calls a break anyway and invites a corpsman in to check Jim’s vital signs, as though Sebastian could not do that easily enough himself. Perhaps the blond is now leery of non-violent touching.

It’s been over twentyfour hours since Jim last took in sufficient fluids. The corpsman states his vital signs are good enough regardless.

Jim grits his teeth in silence. His mouth has sores.

Sebastian removes the food from the table. “You’ve missed your chance, detainee.” Jim glares. Sebastian glares right back and continues, “This petulance only hurts you, you know. I certainly won’t be losing any sleep over it.”

C. Moran tries to guilt Jim again.

Sebastian forces Jim to stand again and stretch out for about ten minutes. “You’re not getting any sleep,” the blond snaps.

“Do you want some water and a nap?” C. Moran asks.

Jim sighs and casts a grimace at Sebastian. “Fine,” he tells the woman.  
She gives him water but Jim hesitates.

“You need to drink,” she says reasonably.

Jim chews his lip. She nudges the water closer. “One more chance,” she prompts.  
Jim does not reach for it. Sebastian empties the water on the floor surlishly. Jim stares at the puddle blankly.

The corpsman has not yet left the room. It’s nine in the morning now. He checks Jim’s vital signs and declares them okay.

C. Moran goes on about guilt and sin. Jim stares through her. She changes her tactics and tries to goad him with his ‘weak cover story’. Jim is not impressed by her ‘you can make this stop’ approach. He deigns not to respond.

Irene abruptly reaches over to touch Jim gently. He almost startles. She checks his vital signs again and she’s so close Jim notices her ID badge proclaims her a captain. It didn’t yesterday.

Irene turns to Sebastian and advises the corpsman will administer IV fluids. She will sign off of it, as the doctor on duty.

It doesn’t make sense. Sebastian outranks her. He’s a far higher rank than the sergeants who interrogated Jim last time.

C. Moran carries on as though all this is normal.

“I need to use the bathroom,” Jim drawls.

“Ask properly,” Sebastian command coolly.

Jim takes a deep breath. “Please may I go to the bathroom?” he asks with taunting faux sweetness.

Sebastian looks tempted to punch him. C. Moran quickly sends Jim away.

On his return Sebastian takes the lead of the interrogation. He calls Jim’s silence ‘cowardly’.

Jim stays quiet but C. Moran writes down that he appears to be thinking on S. Moran’s words.

A young ensign enters the interrogation booth. Jim’s eyes are dull and he barely glances his way.

The ensign sits down food. “Can you unhandcuff him please si- uh- Colonel?”

“No key,” Sebastian says dismissively.  
Jim does not eat.

The ensign disappears with the corpsman and returns alone with food for his superiors. It appears to be lunchtime.

“Questioning your judgement yet?” Sebastian asks.

Jim’s nose turns a little red. Even C. Moran knows him well enough by now to recognise his mild irritation.

The ensign hangs a strap from the ceiling for the IV drip and Irene stands elegantly to help.

“Do you want water?” she asks Jim. “I’ll give you as much as you like, if you’re only a good boy for me and ask nicely.”

She sashays over and checks his vitals. Her touch is commanding yet gentle.

Sebastian growls softly under his breath and conducts a search on Jim’s person for no real reason. Apparently the no touching other than violence method has begun to bore the blond.

“I’ll drink some water,” Jim tells Irene quietly. His head aches.

“No,” says Sebastian.

The interrogation goes on and on. Hours later they desist with the talking, but only to make Jim watch video footage. Jim’s resilience seems to be cracking a little.

Irene takes the key and unbolts his handcuffs from the floor. “He’s going for a nap,” she tells the siblings firmly.

Jim is allowed to sleep. He barely has time to give the beautiful woman a grateful look before his eyes are closed and he is flat on the floor.

Jim is permitted a little over an hour of sleep. He is thankful for it. Irene checks his vitals and offers Jim water. He shakes his head sluggishly.

She stands with a guarded look of frustration in her eyes and helps Jim to his feet. “Bathroom,” she said in a clipped voice. Jim stumbles when she gives him a light swat of encouragement.

“You need to be hydrated,” Irene scolds. He finds it oddly comforting.

“I don’t want it,” the criminal argues regardless.

“You’ll do as you’re told, silly boy,” Irene chides. She gives him two bags of fluid and rolls her eyes at Jim’s protests.

The Irishman turns to the recording device. “I am in charge of my body and I refuse these-“

Her nails squeeze his thin, white arm. “Now, now, don’t make me smack your bottom,” Irene warns him quietly. There’s something in her gaze that suggests she is telling Jim more than he comprehends, but his head hurts and he’s so woozy and tired and-

Sebastian hits Jim in the mouth with surprising gentleness. “ _I_ am in control and you have no choice but to co operate, detainee.”

Jim looks, just for a second, like he is about to cry. His voice is remarkably even as he states, “I want to sign a form or release stating that I don’t want any medications.”

Irene sighs. “There is no form like that, M. And we won't let you die.”

C. Moran nudges Jim. “We’re not finished.”

Jim sits down for fifteen minutes or so but does not settle. His fidgeting clearly irks Sebastian.

Irene sends Jim to the bathroom.

Jim lingers and returns dragging his feet without belligerence. He seems a little disturbed, even frightened, by his predicament, as though only just considering he is alone here.

C. Moran offers him food. Jim declines.

“You’ve already missed five meals,” Irene cautions. She checks his vital signs and frowns. “You’ll worsen,” she warns.

C. Moran offers Jim anonymity in exchange for his co operation. Jim is not too exhausted to wrinkle his nose in derisive amusement.

Sebastian reminds Jim of past false statements coldly. “Clearly your allegiances to yourself are greater than those to your country.”

Jim looks at him.

Sebastian emphasises the brunet has choices and is responsible for his current condition. Jim tilts his head to the side ever so slightly in contemplation. Sebastian seems stranger still.

It is after nine at night. Jim is so tired he feels chilled. He complains of the cold and is surprised when Sebastian turns the heating up.

Jim stares at the pictures C. Moran shows. He drags his feet with tiredness during his next bathroom break.

Irene checks his vital signs. “Normal,” she says reluctantly.

Jim’s eyes water. His tear ducts have fallen asleep.

At midnight Irene insists Jim is put to bed.


	3. 24 November

“M.”

Jim stirs and finds Irene standing over him. He frowns at her blankly in exhaustion, trying his best to force his brain to focus so he can analyse her odd expression. 

She walks over with quiet speed and sits down on the floor beside him. Her touch is gentle as she swiftly checks his vitals. Jim wants to ask her things but he’s so tired. He rolls over, facing away from the brunette but not pulling out of her touch. Jim can feel her painted, pointed fingernails against the sluggish tick of his throat. He tries to sleep.

“I’ve told them you must take oral liquids within an hour or I’ll have to give you an IV, M,” Irene murmurs.

Jim curls in on himself, drawing his knees to his chest weakly. He moans softly in protest.  
“You’re not helping yourself,” Irene sighs.

“Leave me alone,” Jim whispers.

“Bloody fool,” Irene scolds without malice. She sighs again and taps his side gently before rising elegantly to her feet. “Come on, poppet, naptime’s over I’m afraid.”

Jim crumples in on himself some more but then he starts pushing himself to his feet. Irene helps him up and leads him, bound, to the interrogation room.

Sebastian startles Jim by placing down a bottle of Lucozade Sport. “Electrolytes,” the big man says gruffly.

Jim holds the bottle for a moment then pushes it away.

“You need to drink that or you’re getting the IV,” Sebastian warns.

Jim says nothing. C. Moran attempts to begin the interrogation.

“I did warn you,” Irene sighs forty minutes later. She fetches the corpsman to help with the IV.  
They try several times to get the IV in successfully but fail to do so. Jim stares listlessly at his broken skin as Irene complains to the corpsman that ‘the detainee’’s dehydration is making his veins inaccessible. Eventually Irene manages to get the IV into the top of Jim’s left hand but the IV stops flowing.

The corpsman retries the IV, a little unnerved by Jim’s blankness despite his usual experience of detainees. It is naturally unsuccessful.

“Call a doctor,” Irene orders the corpsman.

C. Moran glances up. “I thought you..?”

Irene glances at her. “I want another doctor,” she says crisply.

Sebastian shifts his weight suddenly. Irene meets his questioning gaze. “He’s... fine,” Irene mutters, “but he needs fluids. Soon.”

C. Moran runs her gaze over her brother with a brief expression of confusion then rolls her eyes. She stalks over to Jim and levels her gaze to Irene. “Move.”

C. Moran grasps Jim’s hair and leans close to his ear. “Women and children died in a fireball because of you and we’re supposed to drop everything to hydrate you?” Her voice drops to a whisper and she derisively lets go of his scalp.

Jim’s already grey face turns white at whatever she says in the hushed tone. He finds energy from somewhere to throw his head back and butts her in the eye.

The two military police lurking in the room bolt towards them but Sebastian gets there first. He wrestles Jim to the ground to regain control, as though the bolt connecting Jim to the floor was insufficient.

The way Sebastian holds his body over Jim does not feel familiar. Jim tries to focus on that point, it seems important, but he’s so utterly drained now.

C. Moran continues rubbing her face as she leans down over Jim. She gives him a cold look and Jim attempts to spit on her.

Sebastian jerks him back with more force than Jim expects. The brunet starts to give him a bewildered look but his attention snaps back to Sebastian’s sister as the woman begins talking.

“Go ahead and spit on me,” she says. “It won’t change anything. You’re still here. I’m still talking to you, and you won’t leave until we’re finished with you.”

She stands and jerks her head at her brother. Sebastian puts Jim back in his chair.

Irene rubs her face disgustedly as though trying to shield the scene from her own view.

C. Moran pulls out some circumstantial evidence and smirkingly tells Jim she won’t be going anywhere and neither will the evidence. Jim mutters something along the lines of, “By the grace of your brother only.”

Sebastian stares at him hard but does not say a word.

The new doctor arrives before more fuss can result. He confers with Irene before trying to fit a fresh IV. 

It is unsuccessful. He leaves for more supplies.

C. Moran continues the circumstantial evidence theme. Her face looks sore.

She writes up an assessment just after seven in the morning, three hours after Jim was woken. “Your little tantrum proves you’re not as weak and mentally ill as you would have us believe,” she comments.

Jim gives her an unimpressed look. The doctor arrives again and manages to run an IV through by putting in a temporary shunt. Jim watches with a detached expression.

C. Moran begins an ‘already captured and talking’ approach using a mixture of photographs, including some of young men she previously claimed were dead.

Sebastian has been pacing about whilst she talked, evidently trying to stay awake himself. When he returns to the booth Jim reaches for his IV.

The guards stop him but he reaches again, his eyes meeting Sebastian’s.

On Jim’s next attempt the guards not only stop him but cuff his hands to the chair again so he cannot reach.

Jim bends over and bites the IV tube entirely in two.

Sebastian curses whilst Irene stands as though willing to intervene when the guards grab Jim and strap him to a stretcher. C. Moran watches her.

The corpsman attaches a new IV. Jim struggles violently during the entire process despite his depleted energy levels. He cannot reach the new IV.

C. Moran nonchalantly resumes her approach.

“I need the bathroom,” Jim declares at some point after nine.

“There’s no way you have enough fluids to spare,” Sebastian sneers. “You can use a bottle. We won’t be unstrapping you.”

Jim is given three and a half bags of IV fluid. Irene grips her pale upper arms silently. Her expression is quietly torn. Jim needs fluids, but he's also going to need to play nice to earn a bathroom break after all that.

Jim moans uncomfortably after a while and turns to the military police present. “I’ll talk if I can urinate.”

“We might believe you if you told _them_ ,” one of them replies drolly, gesturing towards the Morans.

C. Moran leans back in her chair. “Who do you work for?”

“Who do you think?” Jim mutters.

“Who was your leader?” 

“Antarctica,” Jim scoffs.

“Why did you go to London?” C. Moran growls.

“The thriving night life,” Jim smirks.

“Who was meeting you at the theatre?”

Jim pauses just long enough to lick his lips. “I was by myself.”

Irene’s eyes glitter above the other woman’s head. She gets the joke.

“I need the bathroom,” Jim repeats.

“The bottle’s here,” Sebastian says unsympathetically.

“The bathroom’s more comfortable,” Jim responds.

“You’ve ruined our trust,” Sebastian shrugs. “You can either go in the bottle or in your trousers.”

Jim meets those blue eyes and does so. C. Moran continues the interrogation.

Sebastian writes up another assessment around half ten. ‘Detainee has a greater sense of animosity towards C. He is beginning to understand the futility of his situation. He has to understand his actions will not stop the interrogation at all. We feel he is slowly realising that he will not outlast the battle of wills. He is much closer to compliance and cooperation now than at the beginning of the operation.’

A little after eleven the interrogation team return. One of the military police is new and they eye the Morans with interest. Ordinarily sergeants do this job, so whatever has two colonels working here is enough to be noteworthy.

C. Moran sits down and takes the lead again. Sebastian leans back and watches, opening his mouth only to attempt to control 'the detainee' when Jim seems particularly belligerent or unresponsive.

Jim fidgets softly with his handcuffs. “May I use the restroom?”

C. Moran pushes the bottle towards him.

Jim would have pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration if he could. “I want to go outside.”  
“Use the bottle,” Sebastian growls.

Jim glowers for a moment before agreeing.

Sebastian nods at him. “More of this cooperative behaviour and we'll see about getting you off the gurney, alright?”

Jim urinates before Sebastian can free him enough to reach the bottle. Irene is uncertain whether the move was desperation or spite, but she orders someone to deal with the mess.  
“Who's running this interrogation?” C. Moran mutters to Irene out of Jim's earshot.

“Darling, if you want to work in a room that smells like a gents' that's your own prerogative,” Irene growls.

C. Moran makes a face and returns to conversation with Jim. 

The brunet moans softly and turns his head to the side. He clears his throat and in a clear voice declares his need for the restroom. 

Sebastian raises his thick, pale brows at the detainee. Jim engages in articulate conversation about getting off of the gurney for a while.

Sebastian nods slowly. “You need to eat,” he barters.

Jim squirms in frustration but agrees. Around noon he is released from the gurney and sat in his chair. Food is placed before him but after two bites he pushes it away.

“It's enough,” Jim tells Irene when she fixes her stern gaze on him.

“You promised to eat the whole meal,” Sebastian warns.

Jim sighs and slowly obeys. C. Moran starts to scold his pace but Irene points out that it has been a long time since he has eaten.

With the air of someone bestowing a treat Sebastian has Jim unshackled upon the consumption of the meal and has the small man taken to the restroom. Irene waylays Jim on the way back and has the criminal washed and changed into clean clothing.

Jim looks frail in his new clothing but his eyes have regained a bit of their spark. The interrogation team engage in conversation regarding various statements he had previously made. The Irishman shrugs and claims the words were made due to pressure and his irritation at the guards.

C. Moran seems exasperated by his surge in energy.

“May I have something more to eat?” Jim requests. “I'm afraid I am still rather famished.”

C. Moran nods at him slowly.

Jim twists his wrists, examining the marks there. “I'll end the hunger strike to stop these IVs,” he offers.

C. Moran makes small talk.

Jim begins to cry hard spontaneously. Irene is uncertain whether it is staged. Sebastian pushes over the Lucozade. 

“Don't waste your fluids,” the big man says flatly.

Jim rambles on about crimes before sighing. “I don't know what your Ice Man _wants_.”

“This isn't about anyone else; this is about you,” C. Moran insists. She speaks on for a while and Jim attempts to affect a look of intentful listening.

“I don't know anything,” he says at last.

An hour or so later he requests food again. C. Moran curls her lip but agrees. Jim eats the meal and drinks half a bottle of water.

He slowly engages less and less. C. Moran pushes, and Sebastian threatens, but Jim becomes evasive on even the most simple of questions.

“What is wrong with you?” Sebastian asks.

Jim stares at him long and hard. Then he gives a bitter sort of laugh and leans back in his chair. “I guess I feel better after eating.”

By three in the afternoon Jim is restless again. He rambles and his replies become more mulish. “I will not eat anymore,” he declares. “I will not drink anymore and I am not going to talk anymore.”

Not long after he begins crying again.  
Sebastian manages to tease a few sentences out of him but Jim continues to barely engage for nearly an hour. They take a break.

Jim continues to say very little. The team take another break around thirty minutes later. Sebastian seems tired but C. Moran seems able to go days without sleep. Irene notes the other members of the team have the sense to work shifts.

Sebastian begins talking about some of Jim's previous crimes.

“Can I go outside?” Jim asks around early evening. He fidgets. “Just to look.”

Sebastian shakes his head. “I'll look for you, if you like,” he teases. “Tell you the colour of the sky.”

The blond actually leaves the room. He whispers something to Jim upon his return then grins coolly at Irene. “Dark. No stars.”

C. Moran resumes the conversation. Jim says nothing but actively listens and views all the photographs placed before him.

At six the corpsman and military police switch shifts. Jim decides to claim innocence and that all events mere coincidences. When pressed about his previous confessions he cites intense psychological pressure.

“Are you innocent or are you expressing remorse?” C. Moran asks.

Jim winks at her. “Write what you like.”

She gives him a disgusted look and glances at her brother. “Behave,” Sebastian warns softly.

Jim sighs and feigns obedience as C. Moran shows him an evidence video.

The colonels take turns questioning Jim on different topics. A little before eight they take a break. Jim is denied food or water.

Jim cries during a video of a crime he did not commit. Irene pushes water towards him.

“I was pressured into making confessions, you know,” Jim tells C. Moran. “Write _that_ down.”

“Don't make me cross,” C. Moran cautions.

“You could always send me to my room,” Jim says. He smirks softly. “Or do you prefer when I call it my cell?”

The interrogation continues into the night. A little after eleven Jim is again denied food or water.

At midnight Irene checks Jim's vitals and sends him to bed.


	4. 25 November

Sebastian wakes Jim at four in the morning. Jim blinks at him, disorientated enough in his sleep-deprived state that the brunet almost pulls the much bigger man to him.

Jim still has just enough sense not to, but Sebastian gives him an odd look. It's a perplexed, searching sort of thing like the blond had seen something in Jim's lapse which the big man did not expect.

Jim frowns and tries to hold on to the moment in his mind's eye. The small man is certain there is something vital here if he could only concentrate enough on it, but he is so exhausted and the niggle just drifts away to the back of his pounding skull again.

Sebastian takes Jim to the bathroom in silence. There are clearly small gears working in the brute's mind as he searches Jim afterwards and cuffs him to the chair to begin the interrogation, but whatever Sebastian is pondering he keeps it to himself.

There is water on the table just within Jim's reach. He reaches out for it shakily and takes a few sips. His lips feel dry.

“A bottle is much better than a bag, isn't it?” C. Moran comments.

Jim lowers his gaze. He's uncertain which mood she is going to be in today.

She starts talking. Jim does not respond.

C. Moran explains how she uses interrogation resistance techniques. Irene watches her out of the corner of her eyes and Jim watches them both.

Sebastian makes Jim stand to avoid sleeping. Jim is uncertain whether this is kindness or sadism.

After about five minutes or so Sebastian locks eyes with Jim. “Since I'm such a kind-hearted guy I'll let you sit down now, but you'll be standing again if you fall asleep, got it?”

Jim does not scoff. He slumps back into his seat.

Ten minutes later Sebastian orders him to stand again.

C. Moran rests her face on one hand. “I don't believe you're mentally sick you know; I think you're just feeling guilty.”

Sebastian leans back in his chair and gestures with one hand dismissively. “You can sit down again.”

“No one feels sorry for you,” C. Moran tells Jim, “you brought this on yourself.”

Jim takes another couple of sips of water. The corpsman looks at Irene for permission then checks Jim's vitals. Jim does not bother to read their faces to determine his wellbeing.

Sebastian gets some guards to take Jim for a walk. “Wake him up a bit, will you?”

Jim gets up obediently. He hasn't said a word since being woken. He's still silent upon his return.  
C. Moran greets him in Irish Gaelic. Jim blinks and returns the greeting flatly.

“I'm mentally ill,” he says in a conversational tone in the middle of her next bout of questioning. She sits back silently.

Irene checks Jim's vitals.

Half an hour later Sebastian forces Jim to stand for two minutes.

Five minutes later Sebastian feels the need to do the same again. Jim can barely focus on the big blond such is his need for sleep.

Nearly two hours since Sebastian roused Jim he forces the small Irishman to stand again. He does not let Jim sit for another twenty five minutes.

“You know what the difference is between my will and God's will?” Sebastian asks.

Jim regards him neutrally. “You want me to pray?”

Sebastian stares him down. “I want you to drink some more water.”

“I'm fasting,” Jim mutters.

The siblings stare at him in silence, radiating tension. The guards fidget a little from boredom and tiredness. Irene raps her nails rhythmically along the cold metal of the desk seeming ill at ease.

Eventually she stops. The silence yawns on. Jim starts to sing nursery rhymes in broken tones. His inflections are all out.

“Keep that up and I'll… turn on the music,” C. Moran grumbles.

Jim blinks at her sardonically but closes his mouth.

The Morans take a break a little before seven in the morning. Irene gets up and walks over to Jim with the corpsman.

“We need to elevate his left hand to alleviate this swelling,” he says.

Irene nods at him seriously and cuffs Jim's hand with a soft strap. It lessens the tension on his arm.

“I don't want my hand tied up,” Jim whines. “I'll take responsibility for it.”

Sebastian walks back in. “I'm glad you're taking responsibility for your hand. Not drinking when I told you to caused the swelling.”

C. Moran covers some circumstantial evidence over Jim's replying silence.

Sebastian covers an odd collection of Jim's personal behaviours. The brunet stares at him searchingly. If this is his Sebastian it's sometimes hard to tell.

Irene gives Jim a check up when the conversation dwindles down again. The swelling in his hand has gone down. His vitals are good, comparatively. She cleans the shunt.  
At eight C. Moran continues down the 'what we know' vein. Sebastian breaks in not long after with more emphasis on Jim's criminal failings.

Jim's head keeps bobbing forwards of its own accord. Everything they say begins to slur and lilt as his vision swims before him. He is so very tired.

“Almost nine,” C. Moran mutters to her brother and Irene. “Let him sleep for half an hour?”

“Make it ten,” Sebastian suggests. “Bit of rest might help him engage more. He's wrecked.”

Irene gets up and shakes Jim's shoulder gently. “Bedtime, trouble.”

He practically sleepwalks back to his cell.

Sebastian lingers a further five minutes after ten before collecting Jim and taking him to the bathroom. The big man notes the detainee looks a bit less grey with exhaustion as he searches him.

C. Moran gives her brother a look as he returns with the Irishman. They've taken their sweet time. She watches Sebastian help the guards put Jim in his chair then she clears her throat. She opens with a talk about the futility of the detainee's actions.

Jim stares at the absent Irene's empty chair.

Sebastian begins a tirade against Jim's ego. It's harsh word by word, but it cuts most because it's _Sebastian_. Even if something seems so very _off_ about the blond.

Irene enters as Sebastian practically bellows some stinging point. Small flecks of his spit coat the steel table.

“What are you doing?” she snaps. Her intervention is staged but she lets some genuine announce seep into her voice.

Jim stares at her with eyes that look almost black.

“Don't talk to him like that; he's a human being,” Irene scolds Sebastian.

“ _Human beings_ don't have his kill count,” the blond snarls before storming out.

Irene sighs and tells the recorder she has taken Sebastian's place. Jim is quiet. The outburst is such an odd combination of words for an infamous sniper.

C. Moran begins speaking but Jim simply looks down and away.

By half eleven Jim is still continuing the silent conduct. “Stand for ten minutes, stretch, and wake up,” C. Moran orders him. She gets up and leaves.

Jim exchanges a glance with Irene. He feels aware of the guards as he obeys.

C. Moran returns with Sebastian. Jim sits down. She runs again with the circumstantial evidence them but Jim continues not to respond verbally.

Irene checks Jim's circulation.

A little before one Jim is offered food. He refuses. It is a rallying moment for him when he notes the interrogation team have chosen to eat their own meals away from his presence for once.

Sebastian enters about half past and gives Jim a look he cannot decipher. 

“Water,” Sebastian offers.

“Don't want it,” Jim mutters.

“Don't care; take it,” Sebastian says mildly.

Jim sighs.

“Come on; be a good lad,” Sebastian says. “It'll stop the headaches.”

“Just a bit of dehydration,” Jim mumbles.

Irene returns and takes the shunt from his thin arm. She looks between the two men intelligently.

C. Moran returns at two. She tries to get Jim to engage in conversation but he is unresponsive.

At four Irene orders Jim laid down and his feet elevated to reduce swelling there. He is gifted forty five minutes of sleep.

A little after five Jim is offered water. The Irishman takes a single sip and Sebastian glowers down at him, yet with less malice than usual. “Drink it all,” Sebastian orders. “I'll let you go to bed earlier tonight.”

Jim refuses.

C. Moran starts another interrogation session at six.

Jim refuses his next meal, and the bottle of water Sebastian tries to persuade him to at least sip.

Sebastian takes over the interrogation afterwards. He gets quite nasty, his focus on 'pride and ego down' well practised, but Jim does not rise to the bait. He's almost calm.

C. Moran steps in for some points on futility. The interrogation swings back to driving down Jim's ego again around half seven.

Jim drinks a bottle of water a little after eight.

Guards take him to the toilet around nine then walk him about in an enclosed area outside. The air is cold on Jim's face and hands.

Jim does knee bends to get his blood circulating. Irene gives him a medical check. She smells clean despite the long hours.

The interrogation continues. It's more of the same boring stuff but Jim cannot help but flinch when Sebastian puts his large hand on the brunet's thin shoulder. Jim twists, trying to dislodge it.

Sebastian walks away.

At eleven Jim protests his innocence and requests that Sebastian stop talking. “You can do better than this,” the brunet declares. “Interrogate me properly and maybe I'll tell you something. Maybe even something juicy.”

Sebastian is unimpressed and C. Moran responds similarly.

Jim claims the interrogations are based on malice, jealousy, hypocrisy and madness. “Everybody has limits,” he rambles, “and once those limits are crossed, what is a person to do?”

“Repent?” C. Moran suggests unsympathetically.

Jim snorts at her. “If I told the truth, everybody would get mad. And...” He trailed off, suddenly looking confused. He touches his face. “Dear me, I've forgotten what I was saying. Shall I stand? Do starjumps, perhaps, to wake myself up?”

At a little after eleven Jim seems on the verge of breaking. He shuts down a little before midnight. Sebastian watches him strangely.

Irene and the corpsman check Jim's physical wellbeing. Guards then walk him to and from the restroom.

At midnight the interrogation ends. Irene gives Jim a further medical check and coaxes him to walk around the room for five minutes to get his blood circulating.

He is taken to bed. Jim's feet are elevated to reduce swelling. It makes it harder to sleep.


	5. 26 November

4am. Sebastian crouches before Jim and wakes him quietly. Jim sniffs out a noise which is somewhere between a gasp of frustration and a whimper.

Sebastian says nothing about it. He takes Jim to the bathroom then walks the detainee around. This is to help the brunet waken and get fluids from the IV to move properly (Jim's feet have swollen in the night due to excess fluid). The chore does not seem to irk Sebastian as much as had become usual.

C. Moran leads on some document or other. Jim shifts in his chair and asks to move around as he is questioned.

C. Moran pushes a bottle of water towards him. “Only if you drink this.”

Jim holds out his thin hand and readily accepts the drink.

C. Moran nods her head at a guard and indicates that the detainee be permitted to stand. She begins playing a video: it is of one of Jim's most deadly crimes.

Jim sighs and asks to visit the bathroom halfway through the video.

C. Moran gazes at him. “You can wait. I think you only ask to go to the loo for a mental break.”

Jim does not ask again.

The video finishes a little after six in the morning, not that Jim knows it. He is taken to the bathroom. Jim glowers and shrugs at the men around him.

“I'm constipated,” he mutters.

The corpsman does not have much sympathy. He insists the detainee have three bottles of water or endure something which might make Jim flush in angry embarrassment if he was less worn down. They bicker for almost thirty minutes before Jim is taken back to the interrogation room.

The corpsman explains the situation to the Morans and C. Moran taunts Jim about it for a little while. Sebastian says nothing.

C. Moran examines some circumstantial evidence aloud and reinforces her earlier claim that Jim is a 'failure'. Jim's body language suggests he is losing his temper.

C. Moran notes it. She nicknames him 'Jimmy'. His eyes are fire.

At eight Irene bustles in looking happier for having had some sleep, finally. She checks Jim's vitals and calls them okay, but she purses her painted lips at the evident tension in the room.

C. Moran talks on about the government and the detainee's plans 'falling apart'. Her voice is stern but soft, almost mockingly sympathetic. Jim appears to be listening to her, but he's mostly considering how long he'd have access to drinking water revoked if he spat on her. He's pretty sure it would be worth the hiding Sebastian would likely give him.

Oblivious, Sebastian takes Jim to the bathroom just after nine then walks the Irishman around to keep him awake. Jim wonders why Sebastian isn't leaving the chore to the guards anymore.

Twenty minutes later C. Moran is back to discussing Jim's 'failures'. The brunet stares off into space.

It irritates C. Moran and she calls in some military police person with a red headband and purple eyebags. “I want him put in a swivel chair,” she declares. Her voice has the haughty command of the highborn. The MP looks momentarily like questioning why the hell that is their job, but instead concedes.

“This'll keep you awake and let you fidget some,” C. Moran tells Jim.

He struggles when he is moves but is too weak to fight as much as before.

C. Moran leans back and makes some onion analogy about how his control is being peeled away. She holds up her hand to Jim's smouldering eyes and displays three fingers.

“Three facts, detainee,” she drawls. She pushes down a finger. “One: we are hunting down your people every day. Two: we will not stop until you are all captured or killed. Three: we control _every_ aspect of your life.”

Jim does not deign to speak but his grimace makes his anger clear.

Sebastian wakes Jim at eleven and takes the smaller man to the bathroom. Jim gets the feeling Seb knows something he doesn't and is tempted to share.

Sebastian lingers but says nothing. At noon the interrogation resumes. Jim is certain the norm is for the interrogators to take shifts so they are not as sleep deprived as their victim, but C. Moran so far proves him wrong.

She gives him a smile with less bite than usual and makes polite conversation at him. Jim does not engage.

“Can I go back to sleep?” he grumbles eventually.

“Not yet,” C. Moran answers without snarling. “Do you want water?”

Jim refuses.

She talks on but manages not to insult him over the next thirty minutes or so. She stretches and pushes her chair back. “Hungry?” she asks.

Jim gives her a mistrustful look. “I'm fasting,” he declares.

She shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

Fragrant food is brought in for the detainee and the team. Jim stares at the plate before him: it looks homemade rather than the usual miserable offerings.

He leans back in his chair and glares at the meal.

“Can I sleep yet?” he asks afterwards.  
“If you have water,” Sebastian says.

Jim sighs and takes a small drink.

“The whole bottle,” C. Moran pushes. Sebastian makes eye contact with Jim and nods.

Jim finishes the bottle and is gifted a half-hour to nap.

He is taken to the bathroom afterwards then returned to the interrogation room by guards.

The brunet seems a little tired and miserable still. Sebastian isn't back yet. “Can I eat now?” Jim mutters eventually.

C. Moran sends for the meal from earlier. It's been reheated to a little warmer than room temperature.

Jim eats quietly.

Sebastian enters the room and takes in the sight of the detainee eating after refusing earlier. The big blond curls his lip and kicks out at his empty chair. “Oh, _now_ sir eats?” Sebastian snaps.

Jim looks at him warily and realises the move is entirely orchestrated.

C. Moran ignores her brother and makes small talk.

A little after two Irene joins them again. She murmurs to him about his stomach and they negotiate medicine.

Jim sits for a little more of C. Moran's soft approach then asks to be taken to the bathroom. She acquiesces. 

At three C. Moran talks on. At four Jim complains of a pain in his head and is offered another nap.

A little after five Sebastian wakes Jim and takes him to the bathroom. They return to the interrogation room and wait for C. Moran.

The woman is a little less saccharine. She talks about Jim's supposed 'numerous slip-ups'.

Jim submits to this as best he can. A little before seven he asks for another bottle of water. He drinks it all. Sebastian takes him to the bathroom and lets Jim exercise, but does not say whatever is on the big man's mind.

Sebastian leads the talk when they get back to the room. Jim keeps his guard up. 

C. Moran takes over again around eight. Jim cannot help but become agitated and yells at her for about five minutes. He is restrained but he knows it is Sebastian he is truly upset by.

C. Moran ignores his upset and continues to try to provoke the detainee. Jim does not care.

Irene gives him water and Sebastian takes him to the bathroom.

C. Moran plays another video. Jim agitates again and tries to kick the DVD player. C. Moran leans over the desk to yell at him and he swings for her.

Sebastian restrains Jim and pushes the smaller man uncomfortably against the steel table.

“Who did you work for?” Sebastian asks. “What were you trying to accomplish?”

Jim keeps his head pressed against the tabletop but wants to scream. Sebastian _knows_ those answers.

At half nine Jim is sent to the bathroom, but he does not want to go with Sebastian. He's taken regardless.

“You can forget your medicine,” Sebastian snaps, which serves to make Irene scowl.

On the men's return C. Moan initiates more talk about Jim's plans falling apart. Sebastian settles and joins her in introducing Jim to photographs of victims. The blond expresses disgust at Jim's actions, as though Sebastian was never involved in the crimes himself.

Jim takes deep offense. He gets taken to the bathroom around eleven and says nothing.

Sebastian gives him the medicine Irene had agreed to. Jim stares at it then turns away.

The short brunet is visibly shaken on the walk back. The Moran siblings share the interrogation afterwards.

Sebastian's harsh in a way that twists Jim's nerves. After a bout of shouting Jim finds himself spitting in Sebastian's face.

Jim freezes, realises Sebastian's surely going to hurt him for it. Jim glowers, squaring his thin shoulders like it's worth it.

Surprisingly, Sebastian does not leap the table and smash in the slight Irishman's face. “I guess you agree,” Sebastian hisses instead, “the only reason of your miserable existence has been to murder innocent people and spread hate.”

“Was it fuck,” Jim mutters.

Irene glares at Sebastian and makes a fuss of checking Jim's vitals. “ _I'll_ put him to bed,” she asserts.


	6. 27 November

Sebastian wakes Jim up, looking almost as tired as the brunet feels. Jim wonders about it. Perhaps Sebastian’s being punished too.

The blond says nothing about it and squats down holding out a bottle of water. Jim takes it wordlessly and drinks. He cannot remember the last time anyone let him brush his teeth.

Sebastian stands and holds out a large hand to help Jim to his feet. Jim accepts it, and wonders why the calluses on the colonel’s hands don’t feel quite right. It seems such an odd thing for the starvation and sleep deprivation to twist.

Sebastian leads him to the bathroom regardless. Afterwards he walks in circles with Jim as though trying to wake up himself.

Jim’s feet are more swollen than yesterday. Irene points it out and Jim is vaguely surprised at his lack of note. His senses must have become so dulled. She offers him aspirin to help reduce the swelling. Jim licks his dry lips and refuses.

Sebastian watches the woman so oddly.

They return to the interrogation room where C. Moran is already sitting.

Sebastian launches into a scolding about Jim’s kicking and spitting incidents from yesterday. Jim stares through him as Sebastian insists, “You have no control, detainee.”

Jim wants to ask if the tirade is for C. Moran’s benefit.

The woman takes the lead on the investigation again and Jim is bored, bored, bored. An hour and a half later his nerves bristle a bit when C. Moran starts prodding into his family history and, “What could possibly have happened in your household to produce a terrorist?”

Jim is silent. His gaze burns like ice. 

C. Moran worries at the sore spot a bit more but does not get enough of a reaction. She moves on with her badgering.

Eventually Sebastian snaps his fingers in Jim’s face. The brunet looks up coolly.

“Bathroom break,” Sebastian declares.

Jim sits back in his chair. “I don’t need to go.”

“What makes you think your needs matter to us?” Sebastian scoffs. He uncuffs Jim from the chair and takes him anyway.

Jim lingers, somewhere between awkward and annoyed. “I told you: I don’t need to go.”

Sebastian leans against the wall. In another life he might have been taking a cigarette as they stared out over London’s skyline. “I heard you,” Sebastian says. “I just needed a break.”

“ _You_ needed a break?” Jim snorts. “Do you want to switch places? I think you’d find it enlightening.”

Sebastian rolls his eyes. It’s an oddly human mannerism. “It might have escaped your notice, but I’m here on every damn shift. And this is normally a _sergeant’s_ job. I don’t know who you pissed off up the ladder, but I’ve been dragged into it and I am _fucking knackered_.”

Jim is silent for a beat too long. “Poor baby,” he says at last.

It doesn’t make sense. Sebastian is complaining like he knows nothing at all, and Jim is _sure_ the blond isn’t this good of an actor.

Or at least, Jim used to be sure.

Maybe this is some sort of code, or maybe Jim’s simply going mad. He’s too exhausted to tell.

Sebastian grimaces but does not seem particularly annoyed. He leans against the wall a bit longer then sighs and straightens his spine.

“Come on,” he says, “back to the grind.”

“Not like I’ve got a choice,” Jim sneers, falling in to step.

Sebastian cracks his neck. “You’re not the only one dancing to someone else’s tune,” he mutters.

Something like hope flares in Jim’s chest. He kicks down on it hard and tells himself this is probably a set up or something. It’s better to mistrust Sebastian and his lies, clearly traps, than to hope.

All the same, when Sebastian sits down at the table across from him and loses that conversational casualness from his face, Jim feels like he’s drowning.

It doesn’t help that he’s been placed back in the damn swivel chair. Jim cannot help but fidget and the motion makes him almost seasick. 

C. Moran drones on and eventually his agitation annoys her. She gets two thugs in red armbands to hold him down and takes pleasure in describing in detail a vile thing Jim knows fine well she can probably do to him.

His chest raises as he searches for the correct response, but she pushes away from the table and moves to a board on the wall.

She writes down _brèagadóir, coimeartach_ and _teip_.

“Are you a liar? Are you a coward? Are you a failure?” she asks. She twists her features icily. “Yes, you are.”

Jim is momentarily thrown by her use of Irish. He _shouldn’t_ be: Jim knows Seb’s family are Morans; he knows they once came from the Republic like he did.  
Jim’s just not used to things that remind him of their past. Everything’s been so different here.

C. Moran thinks she’s gotten to him but it’s for all the wrong reasons. Jim hates her.

They take a break around eight. Irene shows up again to check Jim’s vitals. Sebastian lingers again to stare at Irene like he finds something _off_ about her, but there’s still nothing in his eyes that suggests he remembers her from before.

Jim’s notes the way the woman’s painted lips thin. She knows something’s strange too, he’s certain of it, but she doesn’t say a word that reassures him this isn’t all in his head.

“How are you?” C. Moran asks in mocking Irish upon her return.

“Foirfe,” Jim replies with a wide smile, just to irk her. Her resulting disgust has nothing to do with the state of his poor teeth.

Her interrogation cannot hurt him after that. For now, at least.

By lunchtime Jim has to be jostled awake. This sleep deprivation thing is torture. He giggles at that, out loud, and they stare at him like he’s gone quite barmy. Perhaps he has. They shouldn’t be surprised.

C. Moran takes down some brutal photographs she had pinned to the walls. Sebastian bribes Jim to drink some water for a twenty minute nap right there on the table. Jim accepts.

Sebastian doesn’t open up any more during the next bathroom break. Jim is disappointed, but the moment is pushed to the back of his mind when he returns to the interrogation room. There’s a ration pack left before his chair, which is surprising enough, but there’s also a _hamburger_.

Those bastards.

Jim takes his seat and wonders whether to eat it.

C. Moran starts talking , apparently not having lunch herself, and Jim finds his paw reaching for the food. It’s only to stave off the boredom, he tells himself.

C. Moran gets up and leaves, citing Jim’s ‘whining’. He’s pretty sure she just wants a cheeseburger. 

Sebastian takes over for a bit. If Jim had expected him to be more friendly now he would have been sorely disappointed.

Sebastian’s voice is rough with lack of sleep. The blond keeps rubbing at the scar tissue near his eye, which Jim had read as a sign of tiredness.

Except.

Except except except...

Jim notes with a start that Sebastian’s scar is in the wrong place, somehow. 

Has it always been wrong?

Jim asks for a bathroom break as a chance to clear his mind and to try to think unhindered for a moment. Sebastian refuses. Claims it’s a ploy to interrupt the interrogation. Jim wants to grab him and scream he doesn’t care about the interrogation.

Fifteen minutes later Sebastian takes him to the damned bathroom.

It’s around four when C. Moran returns. She’s in a better temper and Jim supposes she’s had a nap. All the same, she spends about five hours fucking about with his water and naps and bathroom breaks as though even she doesn’t really care about what she has to say. Jim wonders if she’s punishing him.

She leaves him a little after nine to watch some video of his crimes. The entire team leaves. It kind of gives Jim the creeps.

They come back about ten, and Jim’s glad of it, until C. Moran starts taping photographs of his victims to his thin body.

He wants to curse her, but proclaims his innocence instead. He knows it will annoy her more. “I’ll pass a polygraph test,” he tells her around eleven.

She sends him to the bathroom with Sebastian about half past. Jim tries and fails to get a better look at that goddamned scar.

Sebastian makes him do knee bends. Jim wonders whether he should take Irene up on the aspirin when she comes to check him. He finds himself distracted watching Sebastian watch her.

Jim sleeps at midnight.


	7. 28th & 29th November

Sebastian is gone the next day. Everything is the same except for the blond's absence, and that no one takes Jim for exercise. They cite the arrival of base communications workers for this. It doesn't matter a jot to Jim whether they instal command post phone lines or not, it's not like there's anyone left worth phoning, but he's not convinced he believes them.

It could just be paranoia. All this 'interrogation' is merely torture after all and his magnificent brain is certainly suffering from it.

But something's not right. He's _certain_ something's not right. He just needs to understand the strings a bit better. Where are they tied?

 _Who's pulling them all_?

C. Moran has adopted her odd brother's game of making Jim sit and stand at will. It makes him angry after a while.

He pushes a guard who 'tries to teach him where to stand'. Other guards naturally enter the room and 'regain control' but for a moment Jim drinks in the minor satisfaction. It's all he's got. For now and perhaps forever.

He snaps back a complaint at whatever scolding C. Moran gives him. She tells him no one cares what he has to say. She's probably right.

She laughs and Jim cannot help but feel burning hatred in his chest for her.

“You must realise you have no control,” C. Moran says.

Jim wonders whether that is true. Sebastian still does not arrive.

Jim tries to watch Irene's face for clues when she comes around but she offers nothing about Sebastian. She asks after Jim's welfare instead and he admits to the dizzying headache he's borne all day.

“Stop refusing water,” Irene says. “You're close to being dehydrated.”

“I drank water this morning,” Jim slurs to her on his way to bed.

She purses her lips at him. “Not enough. It's not fun what they do to you if you don't look after your body, M.”

“I'm not an idiot,” Jim mutters.

She sighs. “This doesn't look like your smartest plan.”

Jim watches her leave his cell.

In the morning Irene comes by again and he notes her makeup is not crisp nor fresh. It seems she has not slept for the four hours he had been given.

“You'll need an IV if you don't drink some water,” is all she says. Her voice seems dull. Jim wants to tell her things will be okay. He refuses water instead.

Sebastian's still not taking the control position in the interrogation. When Jim returns from a bathroom break he finds _'My shame causes me to look at my feet_ ' written on the floor.

Jim curls his lip at it and crosses his heels pointedly over the graffiti when Irene gives him an IV bag.

C. Moran suggests he has elected the damned procedure because he 'wants people to feel sorry for him'. Her gaze lingers accusingly on Irene, who has at least managed to keep the ID badge she wears consistent for the past few days.

Jim cricks his neck. “I didn't chose this.”

C. Moran jostles his bag a little. “You did,” she states with certainty. “You refuse your water.”

She shows him photographs later in the day. Some are of the inside of the home he shared with Sebastian on Conduit Street. Jim feels sudden tears prick his eyes.

Jim tells himself he's too dehydrated to spare them and composes himself.

C. Moran looks for a moment like she's not just trying to spite him, then continues her work. Jim wonders whether she's playing a part or whether he's merely growing more delusional as his mind and body festers.

C. Moran talks on about child victims and such. “Who wrote your information on these?” Jim sneers. “No one could believe your saccharine rubbish.”

C. Moran snorts and picks up a marker pen. She writes ' _I am going to hell because I am hateful_ ' on a sheet of paper and sends a guard for a stapler.

Jim yawns as she fixes the sign to his clothing. He refuses to jump when the metal bites through to his skin.

They hold him down for an invasive medical procedure later and Irene looks chalk white.

“Thought you did stuff like that for money?” Jim tries to joke with her that night.

She sounds close to tears. “I'm all about _consent_!” she protests.

“It's only torture,” Jim says. He thinks he's comforting her, but perhaps he's helping himself.

Irene swallows loudly in the otherwise empty room. “Your husband doesn't even _recognise_ me,” she says, “and I haven't seen a hair of him in _two days_.”


	8. 30 November

Sebastian's back.

Sebastian's back Sebastian's back Sebastian's back.

He is tall and broad and handsome and strong and _right there in front of Jim_. Is he really here?

Sebastian has a physical smell (pleasant enough, but unsettlingly unfamiliar) and he casts multiple shadows of different strengths beneath the weak light above. He must be real.

Jim feels an overwhelming sense of relief.

But then Jim looks at the man who has 'Col. S. Moran' emblazoned on his worn identity badge. _Really_ looks at him.

That scar's moved again.

Hasn't it?

Jim grimaces and rubs at his greasy forehead. Is that possibly something he could get wrong? Could he _really_ be getting confused about the position of a prominent scar on his once-husband's face?

Surely not…

Right?

Sebastian takes Jim's frown for displeasure and confusion at being wakened and hauls the slight brunet to his feet. “I heard you've been a right brat in my absence.”

Jim stares at him. “Where were you?”

The blond gives him an odd look: an expression flits across his strong face which suggests he is hesitant to trust Jim.

It gives the Irishman chills.

Sebastian gets control of his face. He scoffs and mockingly responds, “I was getting some sleep, wasn't I? I'm not the naughty one here, detainee.”

Jim doesn't believe a word of it. “Why you and not your sister? She's not had a proper break.”

Sebastian snorts. He still hasn't let go of Jim and the heat of his skin is making the brunet feel peculiar. Nostalgic… weak.

Jim just wants to close his eyes and be pulled into Sebastian's broad chest. He wants to feel a large hand soothing his scalp and the warmth of Sebastian's breath amidst reassuring whispers.

“Anyone would think you've missed me,” Sebastian comments.

“What?” Jim asks blankly. He looks fleetingly from Sebastian's hand on him to the man's face. Surely Sebastian hadn't just..?

Sebastian just acknowledged him.

“I have,” Jim blurts. His eyes are wide and Sebastian notes the burst blood vessels marring the white.

Sebastian's eyelids flutter. He didn't...

Irene walks in. Her stilettos clack against the flooring and draw attention to the moment she freezes.

Irene is visibly surprised to see Sebastian. Jim knows her well enough to see it. Whether Sebastian noticed Jim cannot tell but he does witness Irene's shoulders relax fractionally.

She bustles in and pretends nothing's happened. “Let's see how your feet are doing, M.”

“Surely a corpsman could do that,” Sebastian says as Irene crouches.

Jim doesn't want Sebastian to let him go but he reluctantly sits back down and slides from the blond's slackened grip.

Irene looks at Sebastian carefully. “Surely you know as well as I do that _this one's_ a particularly high interest character so he's been assigned _especial attention_ from a doctor?”

Sebastian should know that Irene is not doctor. He should know that in her usual line of work her medical expertise is usually applied during the aftercare of particularly hardcore sessions.

His face betrays none of that knowledge, and it doesn't look satisfied either.

Irene looks away dismissively and checks the swelling of Jim's normally thin feet. She wraps them to avoid further irritation from the cuffs: they've started chafing.

“All done?” Sebastian asks bitingly.

Irene stands and checks the rest of Jim's vitals. She smooths her dress. “All yours,” she says with an inflection that paints confusion on Sebastian's face.

He drags Jim to the bathroom then to exercise in the dark for ten minutes. There is a thickness in the air the whole time and Jim waits for Sebastian to tell him whatever is on the bigger man's tongue, but the blond stays silent.

Jim feels somewhat defeated again as he follows back towards the interrogation booth. A food ration and water have been set out for him. He assesses Sebastian with a sidelong glance and chooses to eat without comment.

C. Moran begins talking about some circumstantial evidence. Jim makes consistent eye contact but cannot bring himself to speak. Something hurts. He tells himself it's dehydration or malnutrition but he thinks it might be his vagus nerve, thinking his upset must mean the confusing, difficult to differentiate collection of organs within him must surely contain an injury.

His chest and stomach hurt and Jim is certain it's all in his head, and entirely Sebastian's fault.

At some point Jim supposes he must be grimacing because he gets sent to the toilet without having to ask for permission. The guards let him walk around a little afterwards for whatever reason. 

Sebastian is gone again when Jim returns to the room. The Irishman feels a bit sick.

“Can… Can I have a nap on the desk?” he asks the nearest guard. “Whilst I wait for Moran,” he says in strained hopefulness.

Sebastian returns in time to catch the interaction. “You don't asks anyone other than your interrogators for _anything_ when you are in this room,” he chastises. “ _We_ are solely in charge of you right now.”

“Don't I feel special?” Jim responds. He does not believe it. Sebastian's not nearly cunning enough to have orchestrated this.

Although… Jim can't even fix in his head why Sebastian's scar seems odd so perhaps it is utterly easy to blind him to anything at all.

C. Moran nudges Sebastian into his seat. The guards take the hint and settle Jim in his own chair. She continues with more circumstantial evidence. Sebastian says little.

Jim stares directly into the bigger man's eyes. They seem more grey than he remembered. “I'm going on strike from food and water again,” Jim decides.

Sebastian sends a corpsman for an IV. Irene stands to help when it arrives but the blond doesn't move his chair out of her way immediately.

A military policeman with a red armband follows along with the corpsman. He restrains Jim's head when the IV is administered.

Jim wonders about it. He hasn't bitten through an IV before, has he?

He's hungry and tired and confused. It is hard to recollect.

A couple of hours later the IV is irritating Jim. He asks for it to be removed but is swiftly denied.

The second shift of guards arrive at eleven, replacing those who have been there since four in the morning. The interrogators stay. Jim is taken to the bathroom and exercised.

He simply wants sleep.

He wants a lot of things really but sleep seems most pressing.

C. Moran shifts her interrogation to discussion of some victims. Jim is mostly unresponsive.

“Excuse me, Colonel?” Jim says at last. “Might I have a nap?”

“Have you earned a nap?” Sebastian asks as C. Moran shifts irritably in her chair. “I know you have a lot to make up for, and I already told you that you would need to earn any special treatment.”

“Please, I'll sleep right on the table,” Jim barters.

“You'll do jumping jacks for the next hour if there's any of that,” Sebastian says with finality. “Pipe down and pay attention.”

The stern expression on the blond's face flickers for the briefest moment. Jim freezes and wonders whether the last conscious thought he had - _I can't believe I missed this arsehole_ \- was actually something he said aloud.

He turns his gaze to the others in alarm but the women seem to find nothing amiss. Irene does not flash him a frightened look.

Jim breathes out softly.

Sebastian observes him with a quietly puzzled look and leans back in his chair. “That's better,” he says at last. “Now, how about you're a good boy and talk to us about what happened in London on-”

He says a date that catches the breath in Jim's throat. He tries not to show it.

“Maybe we'll even let you have a nap afterwards,” C. Moran adds with a false smile. Behind her head Irene looks like she wants to hit the older woman. Jim wonders whether it is loyalty or something else.

Sebastian snaps his fingers in Jim's face. “What did I just tell you about behaving yourself, detainee? I told you to pay attention! Do you call this paying attention?”

“Do you call this an effective interrogation?” Jim snaps. The date has spooked him.

Sebastian's chair scratches the floor as he thrusts himself closer over the desk between them. “I am warning you, little boy, you do not want to take that tone with me!”

“Or what, you'll take me out the back and shoot me?” Jim drawls. The Irishman squares his posture and pointedly crosses his ankles in an exaggeration of nonchalance. He sneers, “Or perhaps you'd rather clear the room and give me a good seeing to.”

Sebastian grips the table and grits out, “Trust me, if I choose to beat you I won't have to empty the room to do it.”

“Who said anything about beating me?” Jim asks in a low, predatory tone.

Sebastian looks surprised and disgusted. He starts to turn away as if in boredom and Jim _aches_ … but then Sebastian turns back. 

He starts talking about evidence but he's looking Jim over with a fresh, calculating look. For all Jim's body has seen better days the look Sebastian gives him is like he hasn't ever really considered Jim sexually before.

The pain in Jim's gut turns to ice.

He's certain this impostor is not really Sebastian.


	9. 1st December

Jim is exhausted when he is woken at the usual, dissatisfying, time of four in the flickering fluorescent tubed morning. He hasn't had much less sleep than usual, being deprived as he is, but he _has_ had an exceptionally troubled sleep.

The imposter who might be Sebastian is sickly pale this morning. Jim tries to focus on the embroidered _Col. S. Moran_ over the broad man's chest. There is something frightening to Jim about looking the blond in the face now: is this Sebastian or is it not? Jim does not know which outcome is worse.

The thread of _Col_ is frayed, like it's been picked at quite a bit.

Jim cannot stop his eyes flicking up to the handsome man's face. 'Sebastian' has the same rings around his eyes that Irene and C. Moran do -Jim has not seen his own reflection in a while but he expects to resemble a panda by now- but the grey eyes are unusually wide, blinking repeatedly and flicking around their surroundings nervously.

It makes Jim's blood pound harder from his chest to his fingertips. He feels it throb as Sebastian pulls him up by thin arms. Jim has gotten so thin he can see his own pulse tick through his marked arms.

The guards seem on high alert today, looking around the corridors and shifting their weight uneasily every few minutes as they chuff air through their nostrils like dissatisfied horses.

There's less of them attending Jim than usual, but much more than typical are dotted around the building. They look more well-pressed than Jim finds familiar, and more ashen faced than he has seen them since they discovered he was still a breakable human, not the untouchably legendary 'spider' of the news articles.

Sebastian takes Jim to the bathroom but excuses himself to a cubicle alone. Jim thinks he hears quiet retching as guards fumble with his chains.

“Don't forget to wash your hands,” Jim tries to sing out when the blond joins him again. Jim's voice surprises and disappoints him with its scratchiness, but after a moment Jim finds he doesn't care. It's not the worst thing that has been taken from him.

Sebastian barely bothers with a scowl. He splashes cold water on his face and does not say a word in reprimand when a young guard does the same.

Jim is already unnerved by the time they take him for exercise.

There's more guards than usual today. And dogs. Normally Jim only hears them from time to time but today he sees three Alsations, a mostly black Rottweiler, and some sort of Mastiff creature with a skull bigger than Jim's own frail ribcage.

“Bomb scare?” Jim asks with a curl of his lip.

Sebastian looks at him. “No jokes today,” he says. He seems worried.

Jim closes his mouth and follows obediently when he is led back inside. The Irishman has long since lost much sense of time, but he thinks the interrogation starts promptly this time. Some days Sebastian seems to linger.

C. Moran gives her brother (is he her brother?) a disgruntled look as he sits down, but Jim reads her face. He's gotten to know her expressions in the past few months: she's apprehensive today too, for some inexplicable reason.

Jim barely notices how she steers the conversation whilst he tries to glean clues from everyone's faces. He's startled by the pitying look C. Moran gives him when he pushes away the water she offers him.

“I'd take the water next time you're offered,” Sebastian tells Jim during the next break.

“Why, so I can throw up like you?” Jim sneers.

Sebastian gives him a dry look that for a moment looks entirely, achingly, _real_. Jim honestly feels nauseous for a moment and has to slow his breathing. He wants so much for this imposter to be Sebastian, and yet perhaps it would be worse if it was.

Jim ordinarily enjoys plotting but he has no drive right now for revenge. He cannot even bring himself to think too seriously about the possibility of real, painful betrayal.

“You could do with your wits about you for the next few days,” Sebastian says at last. “Drink the water; eat the food; keep your head down as best you can.”

Jim tries to glint his dark eyes with an expression of cold calculation he does not feel. “That does nothing to dissolve my feeling that you're all on high alert. Scared you'll lose me?”

“My orders are to keep you from leaving here in a box, or from never leaving here at all, but not all the head honchos find you particularly _endearing_ ,” Sebastian says frankly. He rolls his eyes mockingly although he's clearly still tense. “ _Cannot_ imagine why, detainee.”

Whatever unsettled C. Moran's veneer of cool indifference earlier is firmly fastened away when Jim returns. She plays at those bloody stupid Irish Gaelic lessons again just to test him, then goes on to explain in sneering detail a number of unflattering perceptions of Southern Ireland.

Jim's never been particularly inclined towards being the sort of person who proclaims, ' _our day will come_ ' but that morning he is tempted.

He reminds himself he is above all of that sort of thing. He is above all of this.

He feels a small burn of hatred for his suffered indignities.

Jim leans back in his chair. “I haven't had my check up today, you know.”

C. Moran blinks too quickly. “She's otherwise detained for the moment.”

It's only at that point that Jim feels ice in his stomach at Irene's absence from the room. He hadn't…

He's losing his edge. He's going mad.

 _Irene_. Of course he should have been worried about her the moment he saw those dogs.

Is she alright? Is she gone?

_Is he alone?_

Was she trying to help him? Has she been caught? Where is she?

Was she in contact with anyone?

Is anyone coming for him?


	10. 2nd December

Jim is startled to be woken by C. Moran. Her lips look more bloodless than usual and there is a new twitch in her cheek.

Jim observes her warily and rubs at his face. “Where's Sebastian?” he asks.

She stares at him. “What?” she mutters, but she does not wait for an answer. She pulls Jim to his feet. She's gripping him so tightly Jim can feel her pulse through her thumb. 

It's quickened.

“Come along,” she says. “Bathroom.”

Jim has no idea what to make of it when instead of standing aside she leads him to a sink and carefully -not entirely tenderly but certainly in a _gentle_ matter- cleans Jim's face.

Jim almost quips, but somehow he doesn't dare.

C. Moran runs her fingers down his beard thoughtfully. “I supposed we ought tend to this as well,” she says as a corpsman enters the bathroom.

Jim swallows feeling quite out of his depth.

C. Moran gestures for a guard to fetch a chair from the shower block (a number of detainees struggle to find energy for standing these days) and has Jim secured down. He stares hard at the woman as she meticulously shaves his face but she feels no inclination to meet his eyes for any length of time. He cannot understand her reasoning.

She takes Jim to exercise as though all is perfectly normal. The chill air feels cool on his smooth face.

There's still a heightened presence of guards and dogs, but there is no barking. There is no buzz of chatter from the guards either. All are in an uneasy state of quiet.

C. Moran takes Jim to the interrogation booth and Jim is so relieved to see Sebastian (or Not Sebastian) that the brunet cannot bring himself to care that C. Moran devotes the next two hours to her ordinarily irritating 'you are a failure' approach.

Jim tries to listen attentively in an attempt to understand the unusual circumstances of the day but he struggles to respond to direct comments. He's too focused on staring at the Moran siblings hoping for some sort of epiphany. 

C. Moran prattles on something about Jim having no control. The brunet takes note instead of Sebastian's visibly agitated state. Irene's still not here. Are those details related?

Sebastian takes Jim to the bathroom around eight in the morning.

“Are you alright?” the Irishman asks softly.

Sebastian stares at him but does not answer. He takes Jim back to the interrogation room and perhaps out of spite Jim refuses the meal they offer him.

C. Moran sighs and pushes water towards Jim. He shakes his head and feels a jolt of surprise when she slaps him.

“You'll drink today,” she declares ferociously. C. Moran thrusts the bottle back towards Jim.

Jim blinks and takes a deep breath as he assesses how his cheek now smarts. He opens his mouth to protest but Sebastian shakes his blond head at him. “You'll need it today,” Sebastian mutters.

Jim's face throbs and his already battered pride stings. He takes the water stiffly.

“Good boy,” C. Moran murmurs. Jim does not know how to respond.

C. Moran allows Jim a short break before branching into her next method of interrogation. Jim gets the feeling her heart isn't quite in it as she shows him circumstantial evidence and presses him to tell the truth.

At nine thirty C. Moran turns to the mirrored wall. In certain lighting one can see through it, but Jim does not need that to tell there are now people watching them today. He does not know how to feel as C. Moran seems to give a class on his behaviour, referring to him all the while by only his detainee number. Jim feels alienated from himself as she states the resistance training, clouded thinking, series of mistakes, and attempts to gain control he has exibited.

Except… her recollections are not exactly accurate.

Jim wonders whether the lies are for his benefit or another's. C. Moran makes a show of a satirical puppet performance about some of Jim's crimes to the mirror. Her mimicry of his accent is obviously meant to irk him, but it doesn't much. 

Jim gets the feeling he's missing vital information. Information C. Moran knows.

Eventually she stops performing for the mirror and throws the puppets down on the desk. Jim tries not to stare at them.

“You can nap,” C. Moran murmurs to him.

Jim does not know how to respond. He stares at her blankly until Sebastian kicks him under the table.

“Detainee,” the blond says warningly.

Jim sighs and feigns getting as comfortable as he possibly can. The brunet is as exhausted as ever but he cannot sleep when so much seems to be happening just beyond his understanding.

Some of the guards leave for coffee.

Sebastian does not check whether Jim is asleep before he turns to his sister and starts talking. Jim is uncertain whether he is meant to hear, but he listens anyway.

“I can't handle this,” Sebastian says. He sounds genuinely stressed.

“Put on your big boy pants,” C. Moran responds unsympathetically. Jim watches her carefully from between his folded arms. She isn't moving her lips: the cameras in the room can't monitor her.

Sebastian turns and offers the woman his wrist. “Do you feel that?” he mutters. “I feel _sick_.”

“You're taking it all too personally, and you need to stop drawing attention to yourself,” C. Moran scolds quietly. She squeezes her brother's arm.

He fidgets in agitation. “Don't pretend you're not bothered by all of this. You're in over your head too,” he whispers.

C. Moran cuffs Sebastian with her free hand. “Shut up.”

Sebastian tries to quieten, but moments later cannot help but twist back around to face his sister. “I-”

She feigns being casual before the cameras, but her voice drips with stern admonishment. “Might I remind you who took a dishonourable discharge for you? The _least_ you can do is keep it together when things get difficult.”

Sebastian purses his lips. He looks chastised but not particularly reassured.

C. Moran inclines her head towards Jim. “Take him for a pee and a quick walk around the yard. _Don't_ get yourself into trouble.”

Sebastian sighs and his chair grates against the floor as he stands. Jim pretends to rouse slightly. Sebastian puts his arm on the brunet's shoulder and shakes Jim lightly.

C. Moran is looking away when Jim stands. Sebastian leads him away with lips pressed together.

Sebastian scratches at his scar in the bathroom. He is still visibly agitated but catching himself in the action makes him freeze. He runs his fingers very carefully over the scar and looks in the mirror.

Jim swallows. His heart is pounding in his thin chest. “You're not my husband, are you?” he drawls.

Not Sebastian looks at him quickly. “Sweetheart, don't you think you've got bigger problems?” he responds.

It does something odd and achingly horrible to Jim's insides when the blond uses 'sweetheart' of all endearments. It leaves Jim feeling more puzzled than usual.

At eight that evening everything changes.

C. Moran wakens Jim from a tabletop nap and tells him he is being transported in a swift bark before he is hooded and hurried from the room.

He is led to a vehicle that seems to only drive a few feet before stopping but it's hard for Jim to tell when his adrenaline is spiking so hard.

He is dragged from the vehicle (an ambulance, not that he can really tell) and into a fresh interrogation room.

It takes nearly an hour before Jim's hood is removed but he's long since stopped caring much about time. They're playing England's national anthem. C. Moran steps back from him with the piece of linen in her steady hand and Jim takes note of Irene behind her.

She's in civilian clothes with a bland lanyard around her neck. Her attire does not look ruffled but something in her gaze is strained. She meets Jim's eyes and turns her head in a subtly pointed way.

Jim feels like he's been kicked in the chest.

He stares at the man standing before a wall plastered in crime scene pictures and red lighting.

“Mikey,” Jim says brittlely.


	11. 3rd December

Jim is interrogated all through the night and if he thought his four hour bedtime inadequate before he is vividly reminded that things can always be worse. Mycroft seems rather bitter about a few things and whether the Iceman is playing silly beggars or not, he's certainly taking some vindictive pleasure in advising of the 'proper' way to interrogate Jim.

C. Moran looks like she has found a dead mouse in her slipper by being in the same room as Mycroft Holmes, but Jim cannot ascertain the reason why. Mycroft seems unfazed by C. Moran's lack of enthusiasm and speaks to her as though he believes himself to somehow have the upper hand. Despite the distraction of the hypocritical toad Jim has grown familiar enough with C. Moran to find the derision for Mycroft's belief etched in her movements.

Sebastian (or Not Sebastian) is quieter than Jim has ever seen him within these walls. There's enough tension radiating off of the blond that it is clear Sebastian's character is not merely by nature subdued, but instead poised to go off at a moment's notice. If the curt way Mycroft addresses Sebastian is any indication, the government's man might just have some inkling that Sebastian's surly demeanour is not entirely related to being forced to spend an inordinate amount of time in the company of a notorious criminal.

Mycroft says little about why Jim is _really_ in here and acts like Jim got caught by the authorities. The bigger man's cold eyes mockingly acknowledge his contradictions and whilst the guards seem unaware Jim catches more than once the way the Morans look at Mycroft. Irene's expression barely changes from that night beyond the morning and through the afternoon. Her face is almost as white as the paper Mycroft has had photographs printed on.

Jim and Mycroft play stupid games with each other over whether he will eat or not. The Irishman is glad for the water C. Moran slapped him over: he's needed it.

Mycroft has the gall to mock a cover story Jim certainly did not create on his own. The gaunt brunet knows he is being baited and stares on through Mycroft with a vicious smile.

Mycroft is clever with his needles though and eventually Jim bristles from a barb. Upside down Jim can see a Moran write down, 'detainee dislikes theme' and it pushes him to smooth the ire from his tired face.

Mycroft monologues about futility and arrogance, acting like he is quite invincible. Jim knows it will cost him but he strikes out at the man's paunch when Mycroft comes close to tape a damning photograph to Jim's thin body.

Mycroft looks at Jim hard. Spreading his thin lips into a tight line he turns to Sebastian. “Excuse me whilst I step outside for a moment. I am certain you can _handle_ him.”

Sebastian gives a clipped nod Mycroft does not bother waiting for and stands with a soft sigh. He reaches over and slaps Jim's face hard enough to leave a prominent mark.

“ _Stupid_ move, detainee,” Sebastian snarls as Jim's eyes water. Jim very much wants to believe Mycroft's and the man's _damned_ sibling are solely in charge -even though that would put Jim's situation somewhere rather unpleasant- but the Irishman worries from the way Sebastian moved to hit him that the Holmes are not alone in orchestrating whatever this is.

Jim notes Irene is giving the back of Sebastian's head an odd look.

C. Moran breaks the silence. “I suggest you take him to the lavatories and for a quick wander whilst we wait for that- for _our colleague_ to return,” she tells Sebastian.

Sebastian all but drags Jim from the room. Jim desperately wants something – anything- to happen, but Sebastian seems more focused on his internal stress levels than making any eery conversation. Sebastian rubs his face and suddenly looks at Jim.

The brunet stares back and thinks for a moment that Sebastian is about to apologise for the hot handprint on his face. Jim pauses and whatever Sebastian was about to say is lost as Jim finds himself having to complain of dizziness whilst walking. Sebastian eases him onto the floor and sends a guard for some water with a firmness that has the young woman scurrying off to obey.

“We'll get the doc to check you over when we get you back, alright?” Sebastian murmurs, his thick fingers finding Jim's sluggish pulse.

The woman returns carrying a bottle of water with a swiftness that raises Sebastian's eyebrows. He forces Jim to drink slowly then hefts the brunet to his feet.

Irene seems alarmed when Sebastian helps Jim back to the interrogation room. The pair talk quickly standing over the brunet and Irene checks Jim's vitals again.

Christina Aguilera starts to play from the small tannoy speakers overhead. It makes even the interrogators jump but no one is surprised when Mycroft saunters in a little later.

“Thought you would appreciate the scene setting,” he tells Jim sneeringly. He does not check Jim's body for further bruises.

Jim curls his lip and follows Irene with his eyes as she leaves the room. His heart sinks a little but he feels relief when she returns with a meal ration. Mycroft raises an eyebrow as Jim eats but refrains from comment.

“His vitals?” Mycroft asks Irene.

She keeps her face neutral. “Okay,” she responds. All the same she ensures Jim gets hourly toilet breaks for three or four hours (he ought know which, but his head gets so fuzzy). Irene takes his blood explaining a need to check Jim's kidney function. She calls him dehydrated and Sebastian makes Jim drink.

By the evening Jim is given two IVs. Mycroft tries to engage him in some 'rules have changed' nonsense. Jim does not respond. Despite the novelty of the government viper's appearance Jim cannot concentrate.

Mycroft fills an hour or three (Jim cannot rightly tell) ridiculing the Irishman by developing increasingly farcical stories to fill the gaps in Jim's alleged cover story. Irene tries to get him to eat but he refuses. Sebastian gives him another slap which neither raises Mycroft's eyebrows or persuades Jim to obey.

Irene removes the IV a little later. Mycroft toys with Jim some more before the small man is taken to the bathroom, walked, and offered food and water again. Jim refuses.

An hour later Irene takes Jim to the bathroom. “He's questioned all the staff,” she whispers to Jim out of notice of the guards or the cameras. Jim wonders whether Mycroft is worried about another 'Euros and the governor' sort of situation but has no energy to pass on this thought to Irene. He just gives her a look of acknowledgement and follows her back to the interrogation room.

Irene gives him a look afterwards that's somewhere between puzzled and troubled. Perhaps she's doubting who placed her here, or him. Jim cannot find it within himself to truly care. This none too salubrious little holiday has taken a lot of things from him, not least his freedom and will to help himself.


	12. 4th (&5th) Dec

One of the guards is wearing a watch. Jim's cell is often glaringly bright to ruin his quality of sleep and indeed it's been so long since Jim felt truly rested that he is quite astonished at his ability to pick out the feeble glow of the digital numbers.

00:51. It could be a ploy to mess with his head, what is left of Jim's analytical brain tells him, but he is so weakened at this point he hardly sees much sport in such a game.

Still. It feels earlier than Jim has become used to waking. Perhaps he's just getting more and more tired.

If Jim had to guess (and at this point, he has little left but guesswork) he would suppose it is now winter. It always seems dark when he is walked in the grounds.

He has no real marker for comparison at this point though. If pressed, he's not even truly certain whether this is the winter of the year he was taken, or indeed another. His days are so routine and yet time has lost all meaning.

Regardless of Jim's acknowledgement that he knows so very little about his environment these days, it makes him feel a little more in charge just to know the time. It feels like being given a whisper of something akin to normality.

Jim is exercised and his hands are strung loosely above his head by a corpsman to reduce the swelling from an earlier IV. No one mentions the results of Jim's blood tests or whether his kidneys are okay. 

Jim is taken to the interrogation booth. He is made to stand to improve his circulation which mostly just decreases his energy and morale.

The guard with the digital watch stays in the room. According to its numbers, Irene comes along at about three in the morning to check him over. She looks tired, so perhaps the time is accurate.

Irene clears him and Mycroft dismisses her. Surely from his slimy grimace (is it supposed to be a smile?) the Iceman recognises Irene. Still, he lets her attend Jim. Is this a power play? ' _I know your little pet is here and I allow it because I am wholly unthreatened_ '?

Or is this something else? Jim is certain Mycroft makes Irene's pale skin crawl, but these days what does Jim really know?

Jim finds his head nodding forwards and jerking back sharply as he tries to stay awake. Loud music is blared over the tannoy to keep him awake. They make him stand, which just makes him stumble as he fights sleep.

“You can sleep when you give us the truth,” Mikey says. The prick. He knows what the truth is. Mycroft Holmes knows perfectly well that the truth would leave him quite embarrassed if he had any real sense of decency.

That much Jim knows. That much Jim remembers.

Even that Jim grows to doubt.

But it is four in the morning, so for once Jim knows something.

At four twenty Mycroft pulls away from the table and smooths his clothing. “Let him have thirty minutes to nap. I am taking my break.”

“Should he still stand?” C. Moran asks. Jim thinks her tone is brittle, and perhaps his assessment is right because more than one of the guards suddenly shift their weight nervously.

Mycroft smiles as though unoffended. “For the lark,” he replies. He smiles then has to lick his lips as though stretching is skin so wide is unnatural for his face. He leaves the room.

“Sit down and lean over the desk if you want,” Not Sebastian says. Jim looks at him and doesn't fight at all when the guards help him into his seat. Jim giggles softly to himself for wondering why being bolted to the floor does not make him feel more grounded. He closes his eyes.

Sleep comes quickly at first, but it doesn't stay. Jim is uncertain whether his body is too broken, or holds him too responsible for its sorry state, or whether his shredded nerves have picked up on something. He stays crumpled on the desk and listens to his surroundings.

“I bet he's gone for a nap and a cup of tea,” C. Moran grumbles. “It's not for _him_ to do the long hours.”

“What is it you're always telling me about _sucking it up_?” Not Sebastian replies. His tone is teasing but his deep voice is a little rough with tiredness.

Whatever C. Moran intends to reply is lost as the door opens and her mouth swings shut.

It's Irene. Jim can tell by the distinct sound of her high heels on the flooring. Not Sebastian looks at Irene for a moment then turns to C. Moran and mutters, “I don't trust him as far as I can throw him.”

“Then you're not a complete idiot, but you still need to _shut up_ ,” C. Moran says quietly without moving her lips.

Irene reaches Jim's side and touches his wrist lightly so as not to rouse him. Jim feels a surge of affection for her even though his awake state means the kindness is for naught.

Not Sebastian scratches at his scar. It seems to be in the correct place today. Jim wonders why he is so sure then today why this is Not Sebastian.

C. Moran slaps the blond's hand from his face without saying a word. Perhaps that has something to do with it.

Not Sebastian sighs and looks towards the doorway. “He _said_ 'thirty minutes'.”

Irene curls her shapely lips derisively. “You can hardly take a man like that at his word.”

She tenses and straightens up slowly. Jim understands the slip. Not Sebastian looks so much like the real thing.

Or perhaps he is Sebastian, but Jim doesn't want to think about that. Jim knows the time today and he wants to at least pretend he is in control of something.

Not Sebastian clears his throat and gives a jerky nod but doesn't say anything else.

Mycroft saunters in at six.

“Sit up straight,” he tells Jim.

Jim stares through him. Mycroft achieves obedience through a couple of military police.

Mycroft still won't let the cover story issue rest. Jim has no idea whether he is just trying to be irksome or whether he's trying to cover his enormous backside. Despite the strong hands on his frail frame Jim sneeringly tells Mycroft that he will only answer questions on his cover story then refuses to elaborate any further. It is hardly a clever move but Jim is in no state for plotting. And besides, one needs to understand the game in order to truly play.

Mycroft makes use of his lackeys again to regain physical control of the situation. Jim is made to stand up and face the Union Jack whilst the English national anthem is played, as if either of them regard such things with the respect they are supposed to. 

Jim resists the military police as they attempt to maintain control (at Mycroft's gesture). It gets Jim a sore face.

He does not care. He knows it is seven in the morning.

Jim asks to go to bathroom. 

Mycroft raises his brows. “Say, 'please'.”

Jim smiles back mockingly. He does not feel demeaned as he obeys.

Mycroft snorts like he is not as exasperated by Jim as that twitching vein in his face betrays. He sends Jim to the lavatory.

Upon his return Jim asks for water. He is denied with an icy smile from Mycroft.

Not long later Mikey asks whether Jim would like food and water. Jim gives the man an equally frosty look and declines.

Mycroft sends Jim to bed like a petulant little boy. The former consulting criminal feels Mycroft is tempted to tell him he ought feel grateful for being sent without the back of his legs smarting.

Not Sebastian surprises Jim by taking Jim's face whilst in his cell. The blond's touch is careful and his gaze unreadable. His thumb moves carefully over the skin he bruised previously.

Not Sebastian pulls away. “No breaks,” he says.

Perhaps not in his bones, Jim supposes. His heart is pounding and aching in a way that makes him sick to his stomach.

He sleeps from exhaustion but that cannot overcome the dreams which torment him. Jim wakes and gets unsteadily to his feet. He leans against the doorway and asks through the heavy door for a bathroom visit. He desperately wants to escape his memories, even at the cost of being more tired later.

He gets returned to his cell instead of the anticipated interrogation room. Jim slumps in a corner and tries to sleep without dreaming.

Someone brings him a bottle of water. They stand by Jim as he drinks the whole thing (' _slowly_ ,' they warn him) and permit him another visit to the toilets.

Jim is given a spare bottle of water to take into the interrogation booth and sip. He accepts it and looks around for the guard with the watch.

12:40.

Mycroft confronts Jim with 'evidence' of another detainee identifying him at a compromised safehouse. Jim reminds himself that he has no one important enough to detain. Not anymore.

“...Identified you as a _bodyguard_ ,” Mycroft continues.

Jim refuses to as much as blink lest he give Mikey any satisfaction. The Iceman is amused and it has nothing to do with how farcically physically infirm Jim is these days.

Jim almost wants to laugh too but then he catches sight of Not Sebastian and just can't.

They told Jim at the start that Sebastian Moran was dead. Jim remembers and does not want to.

Around two o'clock Jim is sent to the bathroom again. He is walked and Irene checks his vitals afterwards. She changes his ankle wraps with gentle hands.

The interrogation returns to the 'futility' approach. Jim wonders how many times he has heard it.

Mycroft looks him right in the eyes and says, “This need never end, you know. Things will get worse for you.”

Jim stares at the man he has known for so many years now and just cannot resist kicking out.

Naturally Jim is restrained. It is none too gently either but at least that implies some part of these people still considers him a threat.

Mycroft tuts and scolds Jim for his poor behaviour. His tone is mocking but his pallor suggests momentary surprise.

' _I'm not broken yet, you bastard_ ,' Jim thinks. He apologises sarcastically. “Dear me, Mikey, I dare say my unruly emotions are making me behave badly. How shameful.”

Mycroft stares at him with his usual frosty expression but there are twin spots of heat upon his cheeks for once. Jim makes faces at him, feeling quite high on the minor victory.

Mycroft gives him a somber look. “Your interrogators have seen crazy people before, James, and you are not crazy.”

Jim stops making faces.

He does not respond to anything else for a while but around four thirty Jim leans back in his chair with something like his earlier arrogance. “You know what,” he says, “I think I will be in charge now. You can bring me food and water when I will it and let me sleep when I say. How about that?”

Mycroft is stupid enough to bicker with him, which is all Jim really wants when he feels this helpless. Mycroft and Not Sebastian regain order by having Jim sit then stand, sit then stand, sit then stand until Jim's wasted muscles are quite screaming with tiredness.

Jim blinks. His eyes tell him he is near crying.

Mycroft smiles and tells him not to. Jim wishes him a horrible death.

By six o'clock Jim has stopped caring about the time. He becomes irritated with a person standing at his back and makes several attempt to push away. It gets him nowhere so he takes satisfaction in spitting at the others as they are facing him.

He feels vindication when saliva runs down Mycroft's face. Jim has to look away the instant he spits upon Not Sebastian.

Around an hour later C. Moran points out the swelling in Jim's hands and feet. She sends him for exercise to relieve it.

Jim uses all his body weight to elbow one guard and then the other. He makes no attempt to escape: he just wants to _hurt_ someone.

He is quickly restrained and dragged back to the interrogation booth where he is secured into his chair. Not Sebastian takes Jim's chained arms and carefully checks the thin bones for breaks. Jim hates the blond so much in that tender moment.

Mycroft returns with a saucer and teacup. He gives Jim a sour look then returns his attention to sitting down. He dunks a biscuit into his steaming tea cup and ignores everyone else.

C. Moran takes over as lead. It's difficult to tell whether she holds Jim or Mycroft in most contempt. Mycroft does not care. His posture suggests he believes himself above reproach.

A note arrives for C. Moran that quite wipes the silly expression from the man's face. Jim finds himself craning his neck to look too.

The note is barely worth uncapping a pen for. One letter underlined.

Green ink. An acid letter. No. That's something naval, isn't it, like Sebastian's young half-brother…

No. Jaspar was in the air force. _Is_ in the air force? Jim cannot remember. He does not want to. It is best not to.

Mycroft is pale. He sets down his damned tea cup and steps outside.

Not Sebastian takes the note and nods at its messenger. “Yes, she's coming. I'll stay with the detainee. Send Adler, will you? He's looking rather sick to me.”

C. Moran leaves with the messenger. Not Sebastian does not push to perform any further interrogation but he does not send Jim back to his cell either. The blond simply leans back in his chair and watches Jim.

“Hungry?” he asks.

“No,” Jim says shortly.

“Thirsty?”

“No,” Jim repeats.

Not Sebastian shrugs and rubs his face. “Tell me when you are.”

Jim spares him a weak glare and returns his thoughts to the note. It's niggling something at the back of his brain.

He should know this. If he weren't so tired he would know…

 _Cumming_.

Not Sebastian had said, 'Yes, she's Cumming.'

A C in green ink underlined was the signature used by the head of MI6 (formerly the SIS, and in the original Cumming's day, the Foreign Section). This signature was still in use by the head, so it made perfect sense to nickname its new owner Cumming.

Mycroft Holmes is MI5. It makes perfect sense for him to have a casual dislike for officers of the rival organisation without knowing much about them. Knowing suddenly that C. Moran outranks him, that _would_ get his back up. He always thinks he knows everything.

It does not explain the army uniforms though. But then, Jim's own Moran was a soldier once. A colonel even. Perhaps it is all just further evidence of their sick game.

Not Sebastian allows Jim to stare contemplatively into space for hours but grimaces whenever Jim tries to drop his head to the table and sleep. Jim complies when told to raise his head but says little else. He barely notices when Irene comes or goes.

Jim wonders who has jurisdiction over him. MI5 or MI6? Did he get taken back to British soil? Perhaps this is not a dark British winter at all.

Jim does not look for the guard's watch when he is finally taken to the bathroom then put to bed. It is seven in the following morning.


	13. 5th December &?

Jim is not unaccustomed to surviving on four hours of sleep, but given that he was sent to bed at seven in the morning his body is struggling to adjust. The guard with the watch is absent today, presumably not on this shift. Perhaps catching up on sleep.

Jim feels a sliver of panic at not knowing the time again, but he forces it down. He's survived this long without knowing something so meaningless.

And yet… It had been so gratifying and even _empowering_ to have illicit use of something that was a cornerstone of normality. Not that Jim had ever truly been normal, but within these walls he felt wicked away to the wisps of his core. He felt like he was forgetting who he was and whom he had built himself up to be.

The digital watch had reminded him. Jim takes solace in the proof that with prompting he can still feel something like himself. Mikey well think him bleached away to a ghost of himself, but Jim feels a warm assurance in his chest that he is not unsalvageable yet.

Even if his body is nothing but swollen skin, jutting bones and a floundering pulse.

Jim stares at his hands in the interrogation booth. He has always been skinny, and he's been near skeletal before from poverty or obsession, but he's never looked as ill as this. He has puffy, discoloured flesh now. These are the hands of an old man.

Mycroft is older than he is, and fatter, but the meaty hands of the Government are a caricature of their opposite situations. Mikey's hands are swollen from having plenty, and Jim's are so from the lack of even sufficient circulation.

Not Sebastian's hands are bigger than Jim's and Mycroft's. There are fat, pink scars between the knuckles of his pinkie, ring, and middle fingers. Poor technique. Jim is certain then, but is unsurprised enough that the discovery barely raises his heartbeat.

The scars of Sebastian's knuckles were predominantly on and between his first two fingers, decreasing in size towards his smallest finger. Jim had once known this to be truth, but had doubted himself in the time he had been here.

The clarity of thought having access to the measuring of time yesterday has not left Jim without the presence of that blessed watch. Jim _remembers_ and for once he trusts his memories.

Those are not Sebastian's scars. Those are not Sebastian's hands. The man is not Sebastian.

Jim supposes the truth should make him feel anger or distress, but he feels neither. His feelings are almost neutral, slanted only by a mild curiosity.

He thinks himself unaffected, but it takes him over an hour to notice that C. Moran is nowhere to be seen. Jim wonders about the absence but tries not to let it play on his mind.

Irene comes to attend him a few hours later and Jim is inwardly glad he can at least attest to _her_ whereabouts for the moment. The brunette replaces his ankle bandages to prevent chafing from his cuffs and Jim stares at the tense, white line of her neck.

No tanline. Perhaps his theory that it is winter in Britain here is accurate, but Irene's pale skin is circumstantial evidence at best. They may yet be abroad.

The day passes inconsequentially. Irene leaves and Not Sebastian deigns not to make anymore clandestine comments in the relative privacy of the toilets. Even though the blond is not the man Jim bitterly misses Jim still feels disappointment not to receive the comfort gleaned from the contact; he recognises his desperation for normalcy for what it is and chooses not to waste energy looking further into his feelings. It seems pointless to drive himself mad attempting to psychoanalyse.

Still, Jim cannot help but note the uneasy look a corpsman gives him early that evening during a routine check of him blood pressure and weight.

Jim's analysis of the military police officer's disturbed body language after performing checks that night tell Jim something is wrong. The young woman fetches Irene after a wary debate with Mycroft over whether it is necessary. Jim wonders whether the twenty-year-old pressed the issue out of stubbornness or deep concern.

Irene fusses but eventually calms. She loosens her tight lips to murmur, “You're fine.” Jim is uncertain whether the assertion is for his benefit or her own.

C. Moran is gone for days but Irene struggles to keep her drawn look similarly at bay. There is little in that Jim wants to think of so he questions Not Sebastian on C. Moran's whereabouts every time Mycroft waddles off for a barely earned break.

Not Sebastian does not tell Jim much more than that the blonde woman is 'resting'. Jim gets the feeling Not Sebastian is not telling the whole truth and wonders whether he is supposed to.

The guard with the watch returns for a shift at one minute past midnight. Jim is surprised and relieved and _pleased_ to see the muted glow of the numbers. He does his best not to draw attention to the direction of his gaze but the ridiculous return of his confidence must show because Mycroft deigns to be in a surly sort of mood.

Poor old Mikey must get particularly peeved because after about an hour he has Jim dragged off to a back porch near the enclosed quadrant the brunet is usually taken to for exercise. Mycroft is silent for some time and at first Jim thinks it merely a power play, but then he hears a noise.

Scuffling. Soft screaming.

Just rats. Upon recognising the noise Jim arches a brow at Mycroft. “Sparing no cost on the upkeep, I see. Or would the price of a terrier cut too deeply into your biscuit fund?”

Mycroft gives the frail brunet a sour, sidelong look. With a sniff, Mikey straightens his back, rolls onto his heels a little and with a faux casual voice dripping with venom announces, “You chose this life.”

Jim rolls his eyes. “If you'd wanted me to sleep over, Mikey, you could have been a bit more charming. A girl has _dreams_ , you know.”

Mycroft chuckles mirthlessly. “It may not stop boring you yet to treat your situation with the gravity it deserves but believe me, the only joke here is you.”

Jim tilts his head. “I'm still laughing,” he says.

“A fool's folly,” Mycroft scoffs a little too sharply. “What good things are left in your life?”

Jim does not look at Not Sebastian or the wrist of the negligent guard. He smiles thinly with bloodshot, mocking eyes. “Why, you of course, silly.”

Whatever acerbic comment purses Mycroft's lips is lost to the moment as something happens with nearby dog handlers. Jim cannot tell whether the creatures have darted for a rat or each other but it clearly takes their humans by surprise. There is a flash of fur then aggravated barking that causes Mycroft to tense and frown.

A blonde in uniform strides over to the fuss and Jim does not need to see her flash patch to recognise the woman he has been sitting across from for so many hours.

One of the dog handlers cringes back and there is a brief gleam of red. C. Moran has torn apart a rat and fed it to the bickering Alsations.

She talks with the dog handlers momentarily then leaves the courtyard by the door Jim and the others entered through. The woman turns her head as she walks past and shortly tells Mycroft, “If the dogs or colleagues _catch_ anything don't think your name won't make its way into the report.”

Mycroft has no clever comment. He gives her a dry, somewhat ugly look and maintains control by keeping Jim outside long enough that the emaciated brunet is wracked with shivers.

They return to the interrogation room in the small hours. Despite certainty he has gotten a chill Jim's vitals are declared 'okay' once again.

He refuses food or water. His head pounds and it is all Jim can do to ask Not Sebastian to turn the obnoxious music down.

Around four in the morning Irene checks Jim's vitals. The noise her shoes make on the floor makes his skull hurt. She offers him Motrin and water but Jim refuses both.

“Are you dizzy?” the woman asks.

Jim grimaces up at her. “Yes,” he admits.

“Lack of water,” she says pointedly. “You're dehydrating again.”

Jim curls his lip and shrugs. He is listless when he is given an IV.

“I won't let you die,” Irene states.

Jim blinks and glances up at her through the pain in his head. Her back to Mycroft, Irene looks so determined. Jim hurts too much to concentrate on it any further. 

He cannot make out the numbers on the guard's wrists when he is finally allowed sleep at seven in the morning. He is barely lucid enough to catch the tail end of a conversation between Not Sebastian and Irene. “Just doing as the boss says, nothing else,” the blond mutters.

Jim barely sleeps because of the ache in his head which is barely diminished by the new bruising on his arms where his dehydration made it very difficult to find a vein. The few dreams Jim has are of Sebastian.


	14. 10th December

Jim feels increasingly rough and despite his pain sleeps right through until eleven that morning. He expects another day of the same pointless questioning and steels himself to the likelihood as he rouses and realises he feels like death.

Oddly, no one comes to take Jim to the interrogation room. There is nothing reflective in his cell and the torturous fluorescent lighting casts odd shadows on his arms so Jim can only guess at his pallor. He tries to take his own pulse but the task proves too difficult: he struggles to find it and once he does he cannot time it as the pounding in his head is much too distracting.

Everything hurts.

Guards come and go offering water (far more water than customary) and take Jim for sluggish bathroom breaks so he cannot be contagious. He is uncertain whether he is sick and that is why the routine has altered, or whether the disruption is a game, or whether something is afoot.

He feels too wretched to care.

The guard with the digital watch comes by often enough that Jim tries to understand the pattern of the visits. Water breaks every hour. Toilet visits every ninety minutes or so. He is sure that is far more than usual but it's hard to remember anything properly, or to even bring himself to care. Sometimes he doesn't look at the time when he is attended to by that particular guard. 

Jim desperately wants rest and relief from the pain. He has never been a particularly tactile person but he finds himself wondering the last time he consented to touch from someone outwith this hellhole.

The guards are oddly quiet although the Goddamned music Mycroft has been blasting in at all hours has not relented. Other than issuing the odd command the guards don't converse with or in front of Jim at all. It's eerie, but being spoken to right now requires a Herculean amount of effort to focus on for long, so he cannot bring himself to care.

One of the guards has a log book similar to the one usually in the grip of Jim's interrogators. He wonders whether Mycroft has delegated logging all details to the subordinate or whether there is a reason for every water break being noted. Liability, perhaps, if Jim is dying of dehydration.

Jim considers whether that possibility bothers him. He is uncertain. The part of him that would once have railed and schemed against the waste of his brilliance doesn't seem to care right now. It seems tired like the rest of him. He aches for relief.

Jim wonders whether Sebastian really is dead and whether the blond is waiting for him. Not Sebastian hasn't come by all day and Jim hopes that if he does die Not Sebastian will be there. The sight of the counterfeit is bittersweet but more comforting than an utterly empty existence.

At eight the guard with the watch checks in on Jim, pales, and fetches another corpsman to check Jim's vitals. Jim is tempted to roll away from them to be left alone but he cannot find the energy. The pair converse quickly with each other and the guard scampers off.

Irene returns not long afterwards. Her fingers seem very warm, as the corpsman's had, and her lips purse tightly. “Not like you to be slow, M,” she murmurs. Jim can hear concern in her voice.

She stands and speaks to someone else about a few letters with some urgency. Jim feels too listless to look around or try to parse them. He wants to sleep.

It is almost an hour later when Irene returns with a real doctor and an electrocardiography machine which she sets up with efficiency that does not entirely hide her worry.

Jim murmurs unhappily at her touch but she insists on performing the ECG. The stranger at her side declares Jim's heartbeat regular but very slow. Thirty five beats per minute.

Jim wishes they'd leave and switch off the music and lights. They consult with each other instead.

By half nine a decision has been made to take Jim to a hospital to scan his brain for irregularities, as though there is anything surprising about his treatment resulting in his current condition. It takes until after ten to get approval for a hospital trip and it's gone half past before Jim gets the CT scan.

Irene tries to make jokes about the fuss but he can't muster the energy to care. Ordinarily Jim would be plotting or at least listening intently for information. He would be analysing the Birmingham accent of the hospital staff attending him and telling himself he _must_ be in the UK, and probably in the Queen Elisabeth Hospital.

Irene taps Jim's nose. “You're at the centre of the largest organ transplant programme in Europe; please cease acting like a vegetable.”

Jim meets her eyes weakly and she must know he's not acting.

By half eleven doctors have reviewed Jim's scan and do not find conclusive evidence of any conditions. They request that the detainee is kept overnight until a radiologist can be flown in to ensure no anomalies. Jim is in no fit state to wonder why a radiologist would need to be flown into Birmingham but he hears Irene bickering with people who may be guards or doctors.

Jim is put in an isolation ward and hooked up to a machine which monitors his heart rhythm. Irene stays with him and he thinks she gives him something, or a nurse gives him something, because he sleeps.

Not Sebastian appears in the night and Jim cannot tell whether he is awake or not. The brunet feels weak still but can focus his gaze and his tongue does not feel quite so heavy as before.

“You came,” Jim rasps. His voice is a tragedy but it does not surprise him. It is very difficult to hold his head up.

Not Sebastian gives him a peculiar look that Jim might have been able to interpret if it didn't feel like his body was giving up on him. “I could hardly have left you alone in here,” the blond says.

Jim frowns and tries his best to concentrate. “Why? Hardly going to run away, am I?” The sentence takes more energy than he can spare and he collapses back against his pillow without the wherewithal to feel frustrated about it. He is so drained.

Not Sebastian's voice is very difficult to differentiate from Sebastian's. Not Sebastian scoffs and says, “Maybe not, but I'd still get my arse handed to me if anything happened to you.”

Jim has to close his eyes. “You could take Irene in a fight.”

“Irene?” Not Sebastian sounds confused for a moment then mutters, “Adler's gone for coffee.”

“Tell her to get some sleep,” Jim murmurs.

“You're the one who should sleep. You're not in a good way, shorty,” Not Sebastian says.

Jim tries to lift his head. “W'happened to 'detainee'?” he slurs.

“Get better and I'll call you all the names under the sun,” Not Sebastian promises.

Jim leans back and tries to get comfortable. He cannot, but he's so tired he doesn't care. “S'point?”

There is silence other than the noise of the hospital's machines. Jim is on the cusp of sleep when Not Sebastian finally speaks again.

Or at least, Jim thinks he speaks. In the morning he won't be sure. Something that does not seem like delirium puts pressure on Jim's shoulder and there is warmth, breath, on his ear.

Words.

“Don't you pissing die. Seb'll kill me. And bring you back just to _skin_ you.”


	15. 11th & 12th December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this chapter! I broke a small bone in my hand, then gave myself a sprain by continuing to train on it, so I've had to ration my typing. BUT HERE IT IS <3

The following day Jim sleeps through having his electrolyte levels checked and corrected. This worries Irene, as the fading consulting criminal used to be an eerily observant man, hardly the sort to snooze through having his blood taken. 

Tests from the unnoticed blood samples also show Jim’s potassium levels to be slightly below normal due to his not eating. Irene finds the ability to be surprised that the medical staff have been able to take Jim’s blood serum as surely his dehydration ought lessen the fluid part of his blood. She’s not exaggerating about Jim’s dehydration either: the brunet’s left leg is visibly unpleasantly swollen. Later in the day staff come by to perform an ultrasound on the limb to check for blood clots. None are detected and still Jim sleeps.

The guards change and Irene is reminded to eat. She smiles and agrees but does not leave. She watches Jim instead and takes note when the swelling from his dehydration reduces down to less grotesque levels. 

The results from the cat scan take what feels like a long time to arrive but when they do a nurse tells Irene that no anomalies were found there. Irene waits and checks this with the doctor in charge anyway. He looks at her like he thinks she’s just tired, but honestly she doesn’t trust that Mycroft doesn’t have some horrid little plan for Jim. Not that the frail Irishman is in need of much nudging towards his own demise at this point.

Irene checks and rechecks the readings of the machines attached to Jim. No unusual (for his condition) heart rhythms are recorded by the monitor.

Irene is genuinely surprised when Jim’s heart rate returns to within a normal range naturally. “Not quite done giving them hell yet, are you, M?” she murmurs.

He shifts in his hospital bed as if part of him has heard her, but he does not wake.

Not Sebastian arrives around dinner time and gives Irene a cool look. She purses her lips at him and wonders why the hell Seb insists on playing silly beggars and allowing this dangerous farce to continue.

“What?” the blond grunts.

Irene stares at him hard. Her fingernails leave crescent moon shapes on her palms as she focuses on the sounds of Jim’s mildly labored breathing and the beeping of his machines.

Fuck it.

“What are you hoping to _achieve_ with this?” Irene snaps frustratedly. “He can’t take much more.”

The blond snorts at her, derisive of her concern. “I know you’re a plant,” he says harshly. “I’m just doing my job as I’m supposed to do.”

Irene’s eyes widen. “A _plant_? Me?” She bares her teeth as she narrows her eyes. “You’re supposed to keep him _alive_.”

Whatever the man might say is swallowed as a nurse trundles by with an evening meal for Jim. Surprisingly, the weak Irishman stirs and allows himself to be fed. He is ravenous but the act of eating clearly tires Jim out and he has to collapse back against his pillow, defeated, long before his plate is empty. 

Irene and Not Sebastian eye each other churlishly for the rest of her shift. She lingers afterwards, but she knows that if it is reported that she is a bit _more_ protective of Jim’s wellbeing than her position as supposed medical staff requires it will no doubt pique Mycroft’s interest.

Not Sebastian stays with Jim all the night and waits for the brunet to wake with the desire to talk. An observant little devil like him could not fail to have caught earlier’s blurted confession.

Jim does not wake at all, to converse or otherwise. Not Sebastian cannot blame him; _he_ is exhausted himself.

At eight in the morning medical staff come by and perform checks which they casually assure Not Sebastian are all good. He says nothing when plans go underway for the detainee’s release _this afternoon_ but the way his lips set when Irene protests the decision would have said enough had Jim been in a position to notice.

Jim wakes for short periods around meal times but shows little energy or interest in anything. Irene tries to manipulate medical staff into better reason than to release the frail Irishman (by way of human rights reminders and concerns about the public finding out and a few overt threats) but they take no notice.

At six that evening Jim is hooded and shackled for transportation.

“Is all of this necessary?” Irene sniffs. “He can barely _stand up_ unsupported much less fight us off and run away.”

“Regulations,” a guard says calmly.

C. Moran rides in the ambulance back to base and is observant enough to notice even with the hood that Jim is taking no interest in proceedings: he is asleep. She shakes him firmly.

“You have a choice to make, detainee,” she says.

Jim lets air fail through his nostrils in response.

C. Moran’s grip on him feels odd. She continues, “Either tell the whole truth at last and maybe you’ll eventually get home, or keep up what you’ve been doing and it’s straight back to interrogation for you.”

“Do you suppose were I to spit _really enthusiastically_ some of it would make it through the hood?” Jim retorts.

C. Moran makes a disgusted noise and leans back.

They arrive at camp and as promised C. Moran has Jim taken to the interrogation booth. Once unhooded she gives the brunet another chance to confess whilst Not Sebastian looks on with a strained expression that Jim does not acknowledge.

Mycroft enters and curls his lip as he casts his gaze over Jim. “Enjoy your holiday?”

“Nothing like the feeling of seaweed between one’s toes,” Jim says with a dryness that almost belies his exhaustion. 

Mycroft nods sneeringly and waves his hand to dismiss the small talk. “Only you can make this stop, you know,” he tells Jim. “You’re medically cleared for the moment, but things will get worse for you if you don’t change your tactics.”

“Why Mikey, are you concerned for my wellbeing?” Jim teases. “And here I read all sorts of _terrible_ things about your character into your failure to send me a get well card. Did you make the mistake of buying me grapes and embarrass yourself by eating the stem too?”

Mycroft sends Jim for exercise. “For the good of your health,” the rotund man smirks.

On the exercise ground Jim is hooded again. He supposes it is yet another game but he has neither the energy, the interest, not the inclination to care.

He recognizes C. Moran’s voice long before he understands her actions. Her hurrying him is not to torture him but to get him into a vehicle.

Irene’s swift footsteps alert Jim and the brunet listens as Irene questions C. Moran in barely a whisper.

“Get in,” C. Moran hisses. “We need to go.”

Jim cannot see through the hood and the flash of light is the only sign of motion to him. He quickly surmises Irene has stepped closer and shook her head as she whispers, “It’s far too suspicious if I go.”

“Fine,” C. Moran says shortly. She pushes Irene back and Jim hears Irene’s footing falter. “He needs to leave.”

“Good luck,” is the last thing Jim hears Irene say.

C. Moran slams the roof and the vehicle roars softly into life. It jerks into movement that jostles Jim’s shackles.

C. Moran touches Jim’s skull through the fabric. “No time to explain.”

Everything grows dark as she jumps down and slams the door.


	16. Somewhere Between 12th & 13th December

Jim does not quite know how to process current events. His senses are telling him that C. Moran bundled him into a vehicle whilst Irene agreed to stay behind and run interference, but his life experience and world weariness tell him this cannot truly be the case.

Perhaps he is dreaming, or hallucinating. He remembers the smell of the hospital. It is not unlikely that being starved, dehydrated and tortured has made him very ill. It is not unlikely that he is trapped in the fog of his suffering mind, succumbing to his psyche's desperate need for escape.

Alternatively… Alternatively this could be another sick game played upon him and a worse betrayal. Jim had always loved Sebastian more than Irene, but Sebastian was his everything and Sebastian has been gone. Irene has been with him. And if Irene has betrayed him… if this is a cruel game in which she plays… Jim is not certain he has the energy to endure any more such pain or loss.

He is tired and alone. The hood lets in little to see by in daylight and in the darkness of the vehicle he is entombed within he can see nothing at all. The material does not chafe but Jim's stomach gurgles violently. Perhaps the journey is a long one, or perhaps he's simply starved. They could be driving in a circle around the grounds for all he knows.

Eventually the noise of the engine dies and it takes Jim – half asleep, and perhaps half alive- a long time to notice the uncomfortable jostle of the drive has eased. Fear spikes across his thin shoulders and he blinks in surprise to know he can still feel fresh terror. Things can always get worse.

The back of the vehicle opens with a heavy sound that suggests it is a van or large car. The bed of the vehicle drops under the weight of someone large (they sound large) climbing in to join Jim and the brunet wonders whether he faces further torture, or death, or another form of escape.

There is a familiar smell in his nostrils.

“It's me,” says a voice Jim knows. The brunet frowns hard as he tries to place it, but there is something in the noise that loosens his emaciated shoulders.

Big hands remove the hood gently. Jim blinks, his eyes stinging as they adjust, but it is far from bright outside. Everything is a dirty smear of greyish purple except the ring of light bouncing off of teeth bared before his face.

“Where are we?” Jim tries to ask. The cracked noise his raw throat makes is barely intelligible to even his own ears, but the broad-shouldered man facing him breathes in a way that suggests no confusion.

“Away, but not as far as I'd like,” says the man Jim is pretty sure is blond under any light source. “Got somewhere for you to sleep for a bit, then you'll head on out.”

Jim doesn't have the energy to cock his head in thought, but his brain is not so far gone that he cannot pick up on the flaw. “I don't need to leave here to sleep.”

The bigger man hesitates in the dark. “Not just sleep,” he says awkwardly. “You'll need some medical attention. Food. Stuff.”

Jim considers how to respond. His companion bends before him -risking being easily struck- and unfastens Jim's restraints.

Jim flinches at the gentle, purposeful grip which curls around his narrow wrist. It's…

“You're going to struggle to get down and the ground's pretty rough,” says the man touching Jim. “I can guide you, but with the state of your legs and the rest of you, you'd be best letting me carry you.”

Jim stares out into the murk at the crescent of disembodied teeth. His own mouth does not know how to form a response.

Jim startles as his silence is taken as acquiescence. His frail collection of bird bones is hefted into strong arms and cold air hits his skin as the larger man carries him over uneven ground. The nighttime scents of vegetation fill Jim's nose enough to mask the scent of his perhaps rescuer. Jim twists his face away from the warm muscle of the other man's neck and feels himself waste tears as they sting his dehydrated eyes.

Had Jim's eyes been dry he still would have missed the building he is carried to in the dark. His shadowy rescuer has stumbled a number of times on rocks and branches but his heavy tread on the front step is familiar with the concealed hideaway.

Knock-knock-knock. Knock. _Knock_ -knock-knock-knock.

The code is enough to turn Jim's head to the larger man, but a responding noise -equally muted- makes him shiver. Knock-knock-knock. Knock. Knock-knock-knock- _knock_.

The door opens and Jim's eyes adjust to a tiny flicker of light before the door is swiftly closed behind them. Jim is not immediately placed upon his feet but carried instead to a chair.

“Food first, then conversation,” Jim's companion says firmly. His way of speaking suggests it is not just Jim he is warning. The big man touches Jim's bicep with the back of a large hand. “D'you need a piss?”

It has been a while, but Jim's kidneys are still struggling. “I want to know what's going on,” he says instead. He's surprised for once that there is strength in his tone.

The third presence in the room clears his throat uncomfortably and the familiar noise cuts through Jim's chest like a gunshot.

“I heard you missed me,” says Sebastian.

“You _bastard_ ,” Jim spits, because he doesn't know any other way to parse the _pain_ of thinking Sebastian dead or just dead _to him_.

There's a smudge of movement and Jim senses rather than sees that Sebastian holds up his palm in a familiar gesture of, 'let me explain'. “Before you get mad,” Seb says, “I have had _a hell of a time_ getting you out of there.”

“Because my time at that little holiday camp has been just _peachy_ ,” Jim says with a noticeable crispness to his rasping voice.

Not Sebastian makes an uncomfortable noise that makes Jim remember the other man's presence. “Can we get some food into the bloke before you start fighting?” he says.

“I don't need food!” Jim snaps.

He is surprised when Not Sebastian steps close with a finger pointed firmly in his direction. “Don't start. I'm not having you die on me after all the efforts we have went to to bust your skinny arse, _detainee_.”

Jim bats away Not Sebastian's surprisingly warm hand irritably. “This doesn't concern you. I am having a word with my dead husband.”

“'Dead husband'?” Sebastian snarls. “You want to talk about the _nightmare_ of a dead husband, James _fucking_ Moriarty? How the buggering fuck do you think we got here if not for your _Goddamned_ little mother- _fuck_ -ing stunt on that bloody roof?”

“I can see you saved all your prettiest words for our reunion, Seb, why don't you _fucking_ staple your tongue to a bar of soap whilst you're at it,” Jim sneers. “If you had just followed my idiot-proof instructions-”

There is a fist around the neck of Jim's clothing before he can finish his sentence and Sebastian pushes in his knuckles with enough pressure that Jim understands himself considered lucky not to have the thick fingers around his throat. “Don't. You. Dare. Blame. Me. For this… fucking mess you brought on us with your obsession with those bastarding Holmes,” Sebastian hisses.

“Retract your claws, Tiger, or I'll put you down, little kitty,” Jim warns darkly.

“Have you seen the state of yourself, you self absorbed little prick?” Sebastian retorts. “You're nothing but bird bones and skin!”

“THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DIE AND LEAVE ME TO ROT, SEBASTIAN,” Jim bellows.

Sebastian shoves his husband with enough force that the chair Jim is in topples backwards and Sebastian follows, keeping the thin man fiercely pinned. “I'd _never_. Fucking. Leave you,” Sebastian growls.

Tears burn Jim's eyes again. “Then what _took_ you so long?” he snarls back. He hates how his voice cracks with telling pain.

Sebastian yanks him up by his clothing and the brunet can feel the much larger man's angry breath on his face. “You decided not to tell me that your rooftop stunt was a _game_. Do you have any idea how long I spent trying to kill one Holmes only for another to let me know _where. You. Were?_ ”

Jim ignores the sharp twist in his stomach. “What kind of _Moron_ did I marry that you thought I'd blow my own brilliant brains out for the _Holmes'_?”

“The sort of _Moron_ that _told_ you you were manic and got fucking ignored, as usual, and-”

“You've never been ignored!” Jim snaps. “Do you call it neglecting you when I went to Euros to call off _bloody_ Mikey after you farcically decided you were smart enough to take on Sherlock all by yourself, you IMBECILE?”

“If I'm such a fucking imbecile, Jimmy, why didn't you get your own damned genius _fucking_ self out of there?” Sebastian spits.

Jim pauses. “How _did_ you orchestrate this?”

Sebastian pulls back in disgust, but does not climb off of his husband. It has been far too long for them to be anywhere but physically touching. “I'm not an inept fool, Jim. You have no idea the favours I have had to pull-”

“Will the two of you just shut up?” Not Sebastian protests. He carries over a steaming bowl with an aggravated stalk and kicks lightly at Sebastian's bulk. “Get off of him; he needs to eat before he passes out and we need to get a drip in him. And will the two of you just _stop FIGHTING_? I don't think I've slept in about a year and I need to drive your sorry arses in less than three hours through fuck knows what sort of hostile territory.”

The pair on the floor quieten and breathe heavily as they look up at Not Sebastian.

“Who even _are_ you, anyway?” Jim asks as his husband concedes the other man's words and climbs off. Sebastian rights the chair swiftly, not looking at the annoyed glare Jim sends his way for the movement.

“Severin, obviously,” says Not Sebastian. He peels the false scar from his face. “As if I'd marry a psychotic little runt like you.”

“HEY!” Sebastian exclaims, pushing his brother immediately. Food splashes to the floor and Severin curses him.

“ _Fuckin' idiot_ ,” Severin glowers. He wipes off the bowl with his now wet fatigues and forces it into his brother's hands. “Detainee's not well enough to hold this; you'll have to feed him. I need to take this off now.”

Jim feels peculiar as his husband's brother undresses unselfconsciously in the near darkness. A loud rumble from his sore stomach returns his attention to the soup and his husband.

Sebastian looks churlish but awkwardly holds out the meal to his husband in something evidently trying to be a peaceable fashion. Jim stares at him and sighs.

“I did miss you,” he admits jaggedly.

Sebastian's gaze flickers just enough to see in the gloom. “I'm glad you're okay.”

Not Sebastian rubs his face exasperatedly. “ _Talk later_. Fucking food inside your precious little prick of a husband _now_ or so help me I'll turn in both of you.” 

“Hey watch it, he's _my_ prick of a little husband,” Sebastian warns his brother.

Jim backhands his husband ineffectually and feels aggrieved that his blow does not even make the soup rise to the edges of the bowl. “A bit of respect, Sebastian Moriarty.”

“Oh, blow me,” Sebastian mutters.

“More inclined to castrate you,” Jim mutters.

“ _Will you stop FUCKING arguing_?” Severin cries.

“In case you've forgotten,” Jim says very coldly, “outside of there I can _skin_ you.”

“Fucking try putting a hand on me, little boy,” Severin purrs threateningly.

Sebastian looks between the pair and suddenly feels a new form of unease.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Morse Code knocks:
> 
> Knock-knock-knock. Knock. _Knock_ -knock-knock-knock.  
> "Seb?"
> 
> Knock-knock-knock. Knock. Knock-knock-knock- _knock_.  
>  "Sev?"


	17. 13th Dec and beyond

Jim's intentions to stay awake and drink in every moment of being around Sebastian again (not least because recent events seem much too promising to be anything but a desperate dream) are swift to go awry. The exhausted brunet succumbs to his body's need to shut down non-vital functions before he even manages to finish the bowl of soup which Seb has the sense to lay aside.

Sebastian sits very quietly and looks over his emaciated brunet. Seb himself does not look healthy after time spent grieving Jim and trying to keep out of the Holmes siblings' clutches, but he looks nowhere near the level of tortured and frankly ill Jim appears.

Eventually Severin stirs from a respectful quiet (he can tell how desperate his brother is just to breathe in Moriarty's presence) and begins picking up items from around the hideaway. Sebastian turns and even in the dim lighting his pale eyes pick out his brother's own.

“I'll get that,” Seb says softly. “You should get some sleep. I'll wake you.”

Severin hesitates for a bare moment. His sympathy for Sebastian's feelings are written over his face, and although it's too dark for Seb to see it the other blond can surely tell Sev's line of thought. The decent thing to do would be to fob Sebastian off and let the man enjoy time with his very sick husband.

Severin vocalises a practical response instead: thank you. He will need to drive soon after all, and his current energy levels are barely going to be mollified by a couple of hours' worth of sleep.

Sebastian grunts and encourages Sev to go sleep by rising to his own feet. Seb fully intends to follow through with the task but cannot help but look at Jim some more. It's been so long, and Jim is finally okay, except he isn't really, and things could still get _horribly_ worse.

Severin can all but taste his brother's thoughts in the silent gloom of near-darkness. Some strange unwelcome emotion paws at Sev's chest but it does not stop Severin from finding a place to lie down and instantly closes his eyes. If Sev's mind does not immediately quiet he can hardly call that surprising given the circumstances. Severin rubs his face where the fake scar had sat despite the peculiar dried liquid now being shoved deep in his pocket as though he has any hope of controlling the amount of DNA or other clues they will surely leave behind.

Sev rolls over. He'd like to torch the place but it would only make itself a beacon to highlight their departure and it's not really this place he wants to burn anyway. It's that place. That… place. He wants to burn it with Mycroft and many of those other monsters still in it.

Sev's sister will likely be fine but Severin cannot help but think of Adler. She is extremely vulnerable, and any attempt at running interference in a place like that is likely to cost the poor woman greatly. She had surprised him.

Severin grunts and rolls over the other way. He reminds himself with frustration that he has no time for such thoughts. He must _sleep_.

Sleep is what Jim does for the bulk of the following days. The lack of energy for an actual conversation frustrates him and Sebastian both but it is no secret that Jim is in a very poor state of health.

Sev wishes Adler had joined them. He has ascertained that she is not in fact a true medical doctor but she seemed more practised in pretending to be than he. Jim's health worries him (and not just for the impact it has upon Sev’s brother's mood either).

The sooner they reach a safe place the better is Severin's opinion on the matter. He finds it oddly difficult to talk to Sebastian about this and yet cannot talk about anything else for long either.

Severin is vastly grateful nearly a week later when a teenager in a white teeshirt bearing a vivid web motif surrounded by an anti-paparzzi pattern sidles up to him at a petrol station.

He follows her into the cramped toilet and she gives him a short update that reassures him far more than Jim's constant napping does. The teen confirms the final address and manages to convey directions surprisingly accurately for what she makes it appear she is doing.

The drive is still long but Severin is glad to get the three of them back on the road and closer to medical help and safety.

He doesn't even grimace when his sister's partner opens the car door. “I heard you needed help,” says C.

Severin says nothing. Sebastian gets out and opens his husband’s door.

C quips less once she sees Jim. “Not recovered much yet I see,” she says through pursed lips, and then before Severin can do much she is ordering Sebastian to carry Jim inside and she has people scurrying around with insect-like single-purposeness. Jim is checked over and tries, preciously, to glare out from underneath long, sleep-mussed hair as he is stuck with another IV drip into his painful-looking, mottled hand.

“I understood you to be more daggers in your own leg than needles in me,” Jim grumbles in a rare moment of lucidity.

C laughs although the joke goes over the Moran brothers' heads. Sebastian gets the feeling from the coldly intelligent spark in her eyes that C is quite possibly on Jim's wavelength. Still, with the state Jim is in, it will be long time before the pair can get together and exchange tradecraft mutterings or lamentations about government doubletalk and ineffective staff.

Severin's gaze keeps flicking to Jim as though losing a fight to mentally calculate just how little his broad shoulders and strong arms would have to dig to bury Sebastian's important little brunet. Jim catches the looks perhaps a third of the time and looks away with an increasingly puzzled expression.

Sebastian catches this and narrows his eyes at his brother in vexed suspicion. Sev raises his brows innocently and later fidgets as he fights his own dawning comprehension.

“I spoke to Chrissy,” says C before the three men can do anything else.

The Moran brothers flick their attention to the woman instantly. “How is she?” Severin asks.

“She'll live,” C says dismissively. “She says to ensure M here doesn't die anytime in the near future given the efforts we have all went to to obtain him.”

Sebastian touches Jim with possessive tenderness. “Hear that?” he asks Jim gruffly. “My sister says you can't die.”

“C. Moran?” Jim surmises.

Severin looks at his nails. “She'll probably get something obnoxious in Gailige put on your tombstone if you do, detainee...”

Jim grimaces at the blond. “If you want to know what would be on yours..?”

Sev tilts his chin. “Try it, little boy.”

“Quit it,” Sebastian says more sharply than he intends. A vein in his jaw pulses as they turn to look at him. He weakly turns to C and says, “You were telling us, um-”

“Yes, yes, that Chris will be fine,” says C. “Adler might be another kettle of fish but she was not exactly accounted for after all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well we hardly placed her there ourselves, so we certainly had no plan to accommodate her safety,” C responds.

Jim looks much too done in for this conversation but he leans forwards on weak muscles anyway. “So if Sebby didn’t get her in..?”

Sebastian and Severin shake their heads. “She wasn’t part of the plan. Or our Plan B, C, or Z.”

C crosses her arms over herself. “I’ve been doing some investigation into her whilst you were making your way here. Our ‘dear friend’ Euros implies that she placed Adler there herself to _protect_ M here, and placed codes to such effect on Adler’s lanyards. Chris has confirmed that Adler’s paperwork was inconsistent-“

“No,” Sebastian says. “If anything had been coded Jim would have noticed.”

Severin presses his lips together and it is Jim who speaks. “Actually,” Jim blurts, then clears his throat uncomfortably as everyone turns to look at him. He once loved attention, but he certainly does not when he is about to admit how clever he is _not_. “I was in no fit state to be solving puzzles by the time Irene got there.”

Sebastian flinches at the thought that Jim could ever suffer so strongly as to be incapable of using his extraordinary mind, but Severin betrays no surprise. The blond has seen firsthand how Jim has suffered and how recent events have corroded the former detainee’s mind and body.

C gives an awkward shrug as though not given to offering comfort but feeling an obligation due to her partner’s firm feelings about family. “Don’t feel bad that Euros got the upper hand on it. She thought she had sent in Sebastian to torment Holmes and had no idea about Severin. Chrissy did a good job of wiping the system clean.”

Jim rolls his neck. “You got me out. She didn’t win.”

“What about Adler?” Severin finds himself asking.

Sebastian gives his brother a perturbed look. “Collateral damage.”

Jim frowns and tries to get up unaided. “No. We’re not leaving her with Myc. He’ll break her.”

Sebastian looks at Jim as though not fully recognizing the brunet. “So? That can’t come back on us.”

“She was there,” Jim says fiercely.


End file.
